
Class. 
Book. 



Gop^TightN". 



j^ 



COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



QUAKER HILL 

A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 

BY 

WARREN H. WILSON, A.M. 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE 

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

IN THE 

FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



New York 
1907 






(^^ 



N^\'\ 




CoPYtlCHT 1907, 
BY 

Wamxit H. Wimom. 



CONTENTS 



^ 



INTRODUCTION 

PART. I. 

THE QUAKER COMMUNITY: 

From the Settlement of Quaker Hill, 1728, to the 
Division oe the Meeting, 1828. 

PAce 

CHAPTER I. 
Sources 5 

CHAP'iiiR n. 
The Locality 8 

CHAPTER HI. 
The Assembling of the Quakers 16 

CHAPTER IV. 
Economic Activities of the Quaker Community 20 

CHAPTER V. 
Amusements 28 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Ideals of the Quakers 32 

CHAPTER VII. 
Morals of the Quaker Community 38 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Toleration of Hostile Forces 50 

PART II. 

THE TRANSITION 

From the Division of the Meeting to the Foundixg 
OF Akin Hall, 1828 to 1880. 

CHAPTER I. 
Communication, — The Roads 63 

CHAPTER II. 
Economic Changes 69 



CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 
Religious Life in Transition 79 

PART III. 

THE MIXED COMMUNITY 

From the Founding of Akin Hall to the Present 
Time, 1880 TO 1907. 

CHAPTER I. 
Demotic Composition 88 

CHAPTER II. 
The Economy of House and Field 98 

CHAPTER III. 
New Ideals of Quakerism, Assimilation of Strangers 112 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Common Mind 118 

CHAPTER V. 
Practical Differences and Resemblences '. 130 

CHAPTER VI. 
The Social Organization 135 

CHAPTER VII. 
The Social Welfare 141 

PART IV. 

ORIGINAL APPENDICES 

Family and Church Records. 

Appendix A : — Heads of Families in Oblong Meeting, 1760 155 

Appendix B : — Names of Customers of Daniel Merritt, 1771 158 

Appendix C : — Deeds of Mceting-Housc Lands 167 



INTRODUCTION. 

Fourteen years ago the author came to Quaker Hill as a 
resident, and has spent at least a part of each of the interven- 
ing years in interested study of the locality. For ten of those 
years the fascination of the social life peculiar to the place 
was upon him. Yet all the time, and increasmgly of late, 
the disillusionment which affects every resident in communities 
of this sort was awakening questions and causing regrets. Why 
does not the place grow ? Why do the residents leave ? What 
is the illusive unity which holds all the residents of the place 
in affection, even in a sort of passion for the locality, yet robs 
them of full satisfaction in it, and drives the young and ambi- 
tious forth to live elsewhere? 

The answer to these questions is not easily to be had. It 
is evident that on Quaker Hill life is closely organized, and 
that for eighteen decades a continuous vital principle has given 
character to the population. The author has attempted, by 
use of the analysis of the material, according to the "Induc- 
tive Sociology" of Professor Franklin H. Giddings, to study 
patiently in detail each factor which has played its part in the 
life of this community. 

This book presents the result of that study, and the author 
acknowledges his indebtedness to Professor Giddings for the 
working analysis necessary to the knowledge of his prob- 
lem, as well as for patient assistance and inspiring interest. 
The gradual unfolding of the conclusions, the logical unity of 
the whole, and the explanation of that which before was not 
clear, have all been the fruit of this patient field-work. 

The study of human society is at the present time little 
more than a classifying of material. Only with great reserve 
should any student announce ultimate results, or generalize 



2 INTRODUCTION 

upon the whole problem. For this period of classifying and 
analyzing the material, such study of limited populations as 
this should have value. The author makes no apology for the 
smallness of his field of study. Quaker Hill is not even a 
civil division. It is a fraction of a New York town. There- 
fore no statistical material of value is available. It is, more- 
over, not now an economic unit, though it still may be consid- 
ered a sociological one. This study, therefore, must be of 
interest as an analysis of the working of purely social forces 
in a small population, in which the whole process may be 
observed, more closely than in the intricate and subtle evolu- 
tion of a larger, more self-sufficient social aggregate. 

The descriptive history of Quaker Hill, which it is my pur- 
pose in this book to write, comprises three periods ; and the de- 
scriptive sociology records two differing yet related forms of 
social life, connected by a period of transition. This study will 
then be made up of three parts : First, the Quaker Community ' 
second, the Transition ; and third, the Mixed Community. The 
periods of time corresponding to these three are : The Period 
of the Quaker Community, 1730 to 1830; second, the Period of 
Transition, 1830 to 1880; and third, the Period of the Mixed 
Community, 1880 to 1905. 

The Quaker Community, which ran its course in the one 
hundred years following the settlement of the Hill, presents 
the social history of a homogeneous population, assembled in 
response to common stimuli, obedient to one ideal, sharing an 
environment limited by nature, cultivating an isolation favored 
by the conditions of the time, intermarrying, and interlacing 
their lelations of mutual dependence through a diversified 
industry ; knowing no government so well as the intimate 
authority of their Monthly Meeting; and after a century suf- 
fering absorption in the commerce and thinking of the time 
through increased freedom of communication. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

The Transition follows the Division of the Quaker Meet- 
ing in 1828, the building of turnpikes, and the coming of the 
railroad in 1849. ^ cultured daughter of Quaker Hill, 
whose life has extended through some of those years, has 
called them "the dark ages." It was the middle age of the 
community. The economic life of the place was undergoing 
change, under the penetrating influence of the railroad; the 
population was undergoing radical renovation, the ambitious 
sons of the old stock moving away, and their places being filled 
at the bottom of the social ladder by foreigners, and by immi- 
gration of residents and "summer boarders" of the "world's 
people." Above all, the powerful ideal of Quakerism was shat- 
tered. The community had lost the "make-believe" at which 
it had played for a century in perfect unity. With it went the 
moral and social authority of the Meeting. Two Meetings 
mutually contradicting could never express the ideal of 
Quakerism, that asserted the inspiration of all and every man 
with the one divine spirit. This schism, too, was not local, 
but the Monthly Meeting on the Hill was divided in the same 
year as the Yearly Meeting in New York, the Quarterly 
Meetings in the various sections, and the local Monthly Meet- 
ings throughout the United States. 

The Period of the Mixed Community, from the building 
of Akin Hall and the Mizzen-Top Hotel in 1880 to the year 
1905 has been studied personally by the present writer; and 
it is his belief that during this short period, especially from 
1890 to 1900, the Hill enjoyed as perfect a communal life as 
in the Period of the Quaker Community. The same social 
influence was at work. An exceptionally strong principle of 
assimilation, to be studied in detail in this book, which made of 
the original population a century and a half eariier a perfect 
community, now made a mixed population of Quakers, Irish 
Catholics and New York City residents, into a community 



4 INTRODUCTION 

unified, no less obedient to a modified ideal, having its leaders, 
its mode of association, its peculiar local integrity and a certain 
moral distinction. 

This period appears at the time of this writing, in 1907, 
to be coming slowly to an end, owing to the death of many 
of the older members of the Quaker families, and the swift 
diminution — with their authority removed — of the Quaker in- 
fluence, which was the chief factor in the community's power 
of assimilation. 

If one may state in condensed form what this study dis- 
covers in Quaker Hill that is uncommon and exceptional, one 
would say that the social peculiarity of the Hill is : first, the 
consistent working out of an idea in a social population, with 
the resultant social organization, and communal integrity; 
and second, the power of this community to assimilate individ- 
uals and make them part of itself. 



PART I. 

The Quaker Community, from its Settlement in 1 728, to the 
Division in 1828 

CHAPTER I. 

THE SOURCES OF THIS HISTORY. 

The sources of the history and descriptive sociology of 
Quaker hill are, first, the reminiscences of the older residents 
of the Hill, many of whom have died in the period under direct 
study in this paper ; and second, the written records men- 
tioned below. At no time was Quaker Hill a civil division, 
and the church records available were not kept with such 
accuracy as to give numerical results ; so that statistical mate- 
rial is lacking. 

The written sources are : 

I. The records of Oblong Meeting of the Society of 
Friends until 1828; of the Hicksite Meeting until 1885, when 
it was "laid down" ; and of the Orthodox Meeting until 1905, 
when it ceased to meet.* 

• The oldest records of Oblong meeting are contained in the records of Pur- 
chase Meeting, the mother society, from the earliest date, about 1741, at which 
Oblong is mentioned, to 1744, when it became an independent monthly meeting. 
Most of the early settlers on the Oblong came through Purchase, married there 
and left their names on its pages. From the year 1744 Oblong Meeting was a 
meeting of record, but for thirteen years the minutes were written on loose 
sheets, which have been lost. They may indeed be in existence, for in 1760 the 
meeting directs Clerk Zebulon Ferriss to record the minutes for the time he has 
been clerk; and appoints two to record the previous minutes from the establish- 
ment of the meeting. If those two did as they were directed, there should be a 
book of the oldest records of the Hill in existence; and in any case there may be 
in some old leather bound trunk, leaves of records from 1744 to 1757, whose value 
is beyond calculation. The minutes of the Meeting from 1757 until the division, 
and from that date until the Hicksite Meeting was laid down in 1885, are in the 



6 QUAKER HILL 

2. Records of Purchase Meeting of the Society of Friends 
for the period antedating 1770. 

3. Ledgers of the Merrit general store of dates 1771, 
1772, 1839. 

4. Daybooks and ledgers of the Tofifey store of dates 181 5, 
1824, 1833. 

5. The "Quaker Hill Series" of Local History, publications 
of the Quaker Hill Conference. In particular Nos. H, 111, 
IV, VIlT VIII, IX, X, XI, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI and XVII.* 

6. Maps of Fredericksburgh and vicinity by Robert Erskine 

possession of John Cox, Librarian of the Yearly Meeting (Hicksite). From 1828, 
the year of the division, until the present year, the minutes of the Orthodox 
Friends are in the possession of Vv'illiani IL Osborn. The minutes of the Women's 
Meeting previous to 1807 are missing; one volume, from 9th Mo., 14th, 1807, to 
3rd Mo., i6th, 1835, is with John Cox. In the same place are three volumes of 
the record of Births, Marriages and Deaths: one from 1745 to 1774; then, after a 
gap, due to the absence of a volume, is the second, from 1786 to 1866; and a 
third volume of births and deaths alone from 1828 to 1893. Volumes lacking in this 
collection are the records of births and deaths previous to 1828: and of marriages 
from 1774 to 1786. 

The records of the present Orthodox Meeting in full, as well as the following 
two volumes of the records of the Preparative Meeting of Ministers and Riders at 
Oblong, are in the possession of William H. Osborn on Quaker Hill; first from 
loth month, T2th, 1783, to ist month, i3t!i, 1878; and second from 1878 to present 
time. Last of all, the record of births and deaths of the m.eeting, from 1810 to the 
present day, following the line of the Orthodox society, is in the possession of 
the Post family on Quaker Hill. 

* LOCAL HISTORY SERIES. 

David Irish — A Memoir, by his daughter, Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer, of Quaker 
Hill, N. Y. 

Quaker Ilill in the Eighteenth Century, bv Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of 
Brooklyn, N. ^^ 

Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth Century, liy Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Hiram R. Tones and His School, by Rev. Edward L. Chichester, of Harts- 
dale, N. Y. 

Richard Osborn — A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, of Quaker 
Hill, N. Y. 

Albert J. Akin — A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, of Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Ancient Homes and Early Days at Quaker Hill, by Amanda Akin Stearns, of 
Quaker Hill, N. Y. 

Thomas Taber and Edward Shove — a Reminiscence, by Rev. Benjamin Shove, 
of New York. 

Some Glimpses of the Past, by Alicia Hopkins Taber, of Pawling, N. Y. 

The Purchase iMeeting, by James Wood, of Mt. Kisco, N. Y. 

In Loving Remembrance of Ann Hayes, by Mrs. Warren H. Wilson, of 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 

Washington's Headquarters at Fredericksburgh, by Lewis S. Patrick, of 
Marinette, Wis. 

Historical Landmarks in the Town of Sherman, by Ruth Rogers, of Sherman, 
Conn. 



THE SOURCES 7 

in the De Witt Clinton Collection, in the New York Historical 
Society Building. 

7. Papers by Hon. Alfred T. Ackert, read before the 
Dutchess County Society in the City of New York, 1898 and 
1899. 

8. An Historical Sketch. The Bi-Centennial of the New 
York Yearly Meeting, an address delivered at Flushing, 1895, 
by James Wood. 

9. A Declaration of some of the Fundamental Principles 
of Christian Truth, as held by the Religious Society of Friends. 

10. James Smith's History of Dutchess County. 

11. Philip H. Smith's History of Dutchess County. 

12. Lossing's "Field Book of the Revolution." 

13. Bancroft's "History of the United States." 

14. Irving's "Life of Washington." 

15. "Gazetteer of New York," 1812. 

16. Akin and Ferris, Wing, Briggs and Hoag Family 
Records. 

17. De Chastellux's "Travels in North x'Ymerica." 

18. Anburey's "Travels in North America." 

19. Thatcher's "Military Journal of the Revolution." 

20. Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power." 

21. Barnum's "Enoch Crosby." 

22. "The Writings of Washington," especially in Fall ol 
1778. 

23. Proceedings of the New York Historical Society, 
1859, etc. 

24. New Alilford Gazette, 1858, Boardman's Letter. 

25. Poughkeepsie Eagle, July, 1876, Lossing's Articles. 

26. Fishkill (New York) Packet, 1776 — 1783. 

27. New York Mercury, 1776 — 1783. 

28. Tax-lists of the Town of Pawling, New York. 



CHAPTER II. 

THU LOCALITY. 

In the hill country, sixty-two miles north of New York, 
and twenty-eight miles east of the Hudson River at FishkiP, 
lies Quaker Hill. It is the eastern margin of the town of 
Pawling, and its eastern boundary is the state line of Con- 
necticut. On the north and south it is bounded by the towns 
of Dover and Patterson respectively ; on the west by a line 
which roughly corresponds to the western line of the Oblong, 
that territory which was for a century in dispute between the 
States of New York and Connecticut. Its length is the north 
and south dimension of Pawling. 

This area is six and a half miles long, north and south, 
and irregularly two miles in width, east and west. Quaker 
Hill can scarcely be called a hamlet, because instead of a 
cluster of houses, it is a long road running from south to 
north by N.N.E. and intersected by four roads running from 
east to west. The households located on this road for one 
hundred and sixty years constituted a community of Quakers 
dwelling near their Meeting House; and until the building of 
the Harlem Railroad in the valley below in 1849, had their 
own stores and local industries. 

Before the railroad came, Quaker Hill was obliged to go 
to Poughkeepsie for access to the world, over the precipitous 
sides of West Mountain, and all supplies had to be brought 
up from the river level to this height. At present Quaker Hill, 
in its nearest group of houses at the Mizzen-Top Hotel, is 
three miles and three-quarters from the railroad station at 
Pawling. Other houses are five and seven miles from Paw- 



THE LOCALITY g 

ling. On the east the nearest station of the New York, New- 
Haven and Hartford Railroad, New Milford, is nine miles 
away. The "Central New England" Branch of the N. Y. N. 
H. & H., running east and west, is at West Patterson or 
West Pawling, seven and eight miles. 

The natural obstacle which does more than miles to isolate 
Quaker Hill is its elevation. The "Mizzen-Top Hill," as it 
is now called, is a straightforward Quaker road, mounting 
the face of the Hill four hundred feet in a half-mile. The 
ancient settler on horseback laid it out; and the modern way- 
farer in hotel stage, carriage or motor-car has to follow. 
Quaker Hill is conservative of change. 

The mean elevation is about i,ioo feet above the sea. The 
highest point being Tip-Top, 1,310 feet, and the lowest point 
620 feet. The Hill is characterized by its immediate and 
abrupt rise above surrounding localities, being from 500 to 
830 feet above the village of Pawling, in which the waters 
divide for the Hudson and Housatonic Rivers. On its highest 
hill rises the brook which becomes the Croton River. From 
almost the whole length of Quaker Hill road one looks ofif 
over intervening hills to the east for twenty-five miles, and to 
the west for forty miles to Minnewaska and Mohonk; and to 
the north fifty and sixty miles to the Catskill Mountains. 

One's first impressions are of the green of the foliage and 
herbage. The grass is always fresh, and usually the great 
heaving fields are mellowed with orange tints and the masses 
of trees are of a lighter shade of green than elsewhere. The 
qualities of the soil which have made Quaker Hill "a grass 
country" for cattle make it a delight to the eye. Well watered 
always, when other sections may be in drought, its natural 
advantages take forms of beauty which delight the artist and 
satisfv the eve of the untrained observer. 



lO QUAKER HII.L 

The Hill is a conspicuous plateau, very narrow, extending 
north and south. It is "the place that is all length and no 
breadth." Six miles long upon the crest of the height runs 
the road which is its main thoroughfare, and was in its first 
century the chief avenue of travel. Crossing it at right angles 
are four roads, that now carry the wagon and carriage traffic 
to the valleys on either side ; which since railroad days are the 
termini of all journeys. The elevation above the surrounding 
hills and valleys is such that one must always climb to attain 
the hill ; and one moves upon its lofty ridge in constant sight 
of the distant conspicuous heights, the Connecticut uplands 
east of the Housatonic on one side, and on the other, the 
Shawangunk and Catskill Mountains, west of the Hudson, 
all of them more than 25 miles away. 

Unsheltered as it is, the locality is subject to severe 
weather. The extreme of heat observed has been 105 degrees; 
and of cold — 24 degrees. 

Quaker Hill possesses natural advantages for agriculture 
only. No minerals of commercial value are there ; although 
iron ore is found in Pawling and nearby towns. On the con- 
fines of the Hill, in Deuell Hollow, a shaft was driven into the 
hillside for forty feet, by some lonely prospector, and then 
abandoned; to be later on seized upon and made the tradi- 
tional location of a gold mine. The Quaker Hill imagination 
is more fertile and varied than Quaker Hill land. No commer- 
cial advantages have ever fallen upon the place, except those 
resultant from cultivation of the fertile soil in the way of 
stores, now passed away ; and the opportunity to keep summer 
boarders in the heated season. 

Interest which attaches to Quaker Hill is of a three-fold 
sort: historical, scenic and climatic. The locality has a his- 
tory of peculiarly dramatic interest. It is beautiful with a 
rare and satisfying dignity and loveliness of scene; and it is 



THE LOCAUTY II 

the choice central spot of a region bathed in a saUibrious at- 
mosphere which has had much to do with its social character 
in the past, and is to-day very efifective in making the place 
a summer settlement of New York people. The population 
is increased one hundred per cent, in the summer months, 
the increase being solely due to the healthful and refreshing 
nature of the place. 

The history of the locality is associated with the quaint 
name, "The Oblong." This was the name of a strip of land, 
lying along the eastern boundary of New York State, now 
part of Westchester, Putnam and Dutchess Counties, and nar- 
rowing to the northward, which was for a century in dispute 
between New York and Connecticut. 

There had been a half century in which this was all dis- 
puted land, between the Dutch at New York and the English 
in New England. Then followed a half century of dispute 
as to the boundary between sister colonies, which are now 
New York and Connecticut. As soon as this was settled in 
1 73 1 the immigration flowed in, and the history of Quaker Hill, 
the first settlement in the Oblong, begins. It was granted to 
New York ; and in compensation the lands on which Stam- 
ford and Greenwich stand were granted to Connecticut after 
a long and bitter dispute. The end of the dispute and the first 
settlement of the Oblong came, for obvious reasons, in the 
same year. The first considerable settlement of pioneers was 
made at Quaker Hill in 1731, by Friends, who came from 
Harrison's Purchase, now a part of Rye.* 

The historical interest of the locality dwells in the con- 
trast between the simple annals of Quakerism, which was prac- 

* Mr. James Wood, in his Bicentennial Address in 1895, thus described the 
Oblong: 

The eastern side of the country had been settled by Presbyterians from Con- 
necticut, and the western side along the Hudson River by the Dutch. The feeling 
between tlieni was far frotn ff;pnd'^^ T''"-r tlisnutes 'i^d been very bitter, and Rye 
and Bedford had revolted from New York's jurisdiction. Their whipping-posts 
stood ready for the punishment of any from- the river settlements who committed 



12 QUAKKR HILL 

ticed there in the eighteenth century, and the miUtary tradi- 
tions which have fallen to the lot of peaceful Quaker Hill, 
The "Old Meeting House," known for years officially as Ob- 
long Meeting House, experienced in its past, full of memories 
of men of peace, the violent seizures by men of war. That 
storied scene, in the fall of 1778, when the Meeting Hous? 
was seized for the uses of the army as a hospital,* has lived 
in the thoughts of all who have known the place, and has 
been cherished by none more reverently than by the children 
of Quakers, whose peace the soldiers invaded. Both the sol- 
dier and the Quaker laid their bones in the dust of the Hill. 
Both had faith in liberty and equality. The history of 
Quaker Hill in the eighteenth century is the story of these 
two schools of idealists, who ignored each other, but were 
moved by the same passion, obeyed the same spirit. It is said 
that a locality never loses the impression made upon it by its 
earliest residents. Certain it is that the roots of modern things 
are to be traced in that earliest period, and through a con- 
tinuous self-contained life until the present day. 

In the eighteenth century Quaker Hill was the chosen asy- 
lum of men of peace. Yet it became the rallying place of 
periodic outbursts of the fighting spirit of that warlike age ; 

even slight offenses within their limits. As the two peoples naturally repelled each 
other they had left a strip of land, comparatively unoccupied, between them. This 
continued in nearly a north and south line, parallel with the river, and a little 
more than midway between it and the Connecticut and Massachusetts lines, as far 
as they extended. Into and through the strip of land the Quaker stream flowed, 
like a liquid injected into a fissure in the rocks. Each Quaker home as it settled 
became a resting place for those who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of 
Quaker hospitality to keep open house for all fellow members, under all 
circumstances. 

* "One First Day morning, in the mellow October days of that year, the 
worshipping stillness of the Friends' Meeting was broken by the tramp of horses, 
and the jangling of spurs, as a band of soldiers rode up, dismounted and entered 
the building. They remained quiet and reverent, till the handshaking of the elders 
closed the meeting; then the commanding officer rose, and in the name of the 
Continental Congress took possession of the building for a hospital for the troops, 
and as such it was used all that winter. After this meetings were held in the 
"great room" in the house of Paul Osborn, and were often frequented by soldiers 
stationed in the place, who listened attentively to the speaking, and left quietly at 
the close of the meeting." — Richard Osborn — a Reminiscence, by Margaret B. 
Monahan, Quaker Hill Local History Series, No. \'III. 



THE LOCALITY 1 3 

and it was invaded during the great struggle for national 
independence by the camps of Washington. 

There is a dignity common to Washington battling for 
liberty, and the Quaker pioneers serenely planning seven years 
before the Revolution for the freedom of the slave. But he 
was a Revolutionist, they were loyal to King George ; he was 
a man of blood, brilliant in the garb of a warrior, and they 
were men of peace, dreaming only of the kingdom of God. 
He was fighting for a definite advance in liberty to be enjoyed 
at once ; they were set on an enfranchisement that involved 
one hundred years ; and a greater war at the end than his 
revolution. Their records contains no mention of his pres- 
ence here, though his soldiers seized and fortified the Meeting 
House.* His letters never mention the Quakers, neither their 
picturesque abode, their dreams of freedom for the slave, nor 
their Tory loyalty. 

Each cherished his ideal and staked his life and ease and 
happiness upon it. Each, after the fashion of a narrow age, 
ignored the other's adherence to that ideal. To us they are 
sublime figures in bold contrast crossing that far-ofif stage : 
Washington, booted, with belted sword, spurrmg his horse 
up the western slope of the Hill, to review the soldiers of the 
Revolution in 1778; and Paul Osborn, Joseph Irish and Abner 
Hoag, plain men, unarmed save with faith, riding their plough 
horses down the eastern slope in 1775, to plead for the free- 
dom of the slave at the Yearly Meeting at Flushing. 

What effect the beauty of the place had upon the pioneer 
settlers it is, of course, impossible to say, for they have left 
no record of their appreciation of its beauty. Probably their 
interest in the picturesque was the same as that of a Quaker 
elder, of fine and choice culture after the Quaker standards, 
who said to the author, with a quiet laugh : "People all say 

* In the garret of the Meeting House rifle-ports, cut through the original planks, 
were discovered by the present writer. 



14 QUAKER HILL 

that the views from my house are very beautiful, and I sup- 
pose they are; but I have Hved here all my life, and I have 
never seen it." A Quakeress confessed to the same in- 
difference to the beauty of the Hill, until she had resided 
for a time in another state, and had mingled with those who 
had a lively sense of beauty of scene ; returning thereafter to 
the Hill, it appeared beautiful to her ever afterward. 

The land has been for several generations under a high 
state of cultivation. The keeping of many cattle has en- 
riched the broad pastures ; and the dairy industry has been 
carried on with constant fertilizing of the lands ; so that the 
great fields, heaping up one upon another, high above the 
valley, and plunging down in steep slopes so suddenly that 
the falling land is lost from view and the valley below seems 
to hang unattached, are covered with a brilliancy of coloring 
and a variety of those ricli tints of green and orange which 
spell to the eye abundance, and arouse a keen delight, like that 
of possessing and enjoying. 

There is also a large dignity in the outlines of every scene, 
which constantly expands the sensations and gives, on every 
hand, a sense of exhiliaration and a pleasurable excitement to 
the emotions, which seems in experience to have something to 
do with the industry and application characteristic of Quaker 
Hill. 

With this the atmosphere has had much to do, no doubt, 
being dry and soft. The first sensation of one alighting from 
a train in the town is one of lightness and exhilaration. This 
sensation continues through the first hours of one's stay on 
the Hill.* After the first day of exhilaration come a day or 
more of drowsiness, with nights of profound sleep. In some 
persons a heightened nervousness is experienced, but in most 
cases the Hill has the effect upon those who reside there of a 
steady nervous arousal, a pleasure in activity, and a keen 
interest in life and work. 



THE LOCALITY Ic 

Whether the early settlers, in selecting the highest ground 
in this region, had a sense of this excellence of the climatic 
effect we do not know ; but their descendants believe that 
such was their reason for settling the highest arable land on 
the Hill before the valleys or the lower slopes were cleared. 
It is the common tradition that they settled on the Hill first, 
and on its highest parts, in order to avoid the malaria of the 
lowlands ; as well as because they thought the hill lands to be 
more fertile. 

The excellence of the climate is witnessed in the long lives 
of its residents. There were living in 1903, in a population 
of four hundred, five persons, each of whom was at least ninety 
years of age; and fifteen, each of whom was more than sev- 
enty-five years of age. 



* "Bodily functions are facilitated by atmospheric conditions which make evap- 
oration from the skin and lungs rapid. That weak persons whose variations of 
health furnish good tests, are worse when the air is surcharged with water, and 
better when the weather is fine; and that commonly such persons are enervated by 
residence in moist localities but invigorated by residence in dry ones, are facts 
generally recognized. And this relation of cause and effect, manifest in individuals, 
doubtless holds in races." — Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, Vol I, p. 21. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE ASSExMBLING OF THE QUAKERS. 

The social mind of the Quaker Hill population was formed, 
at the settlement of the place, in a common response to com- 
mon stimuli. The population was congregated from Long 
Island and Alassachusetts settlements, by the tidings of the 
opening of this fertile land of the Oblong for settlement in 
1 73 1. I infer from the fact that settlements were previously- 
made on both sides, at Fredericksburgh on one side, and at 
New Milford on the other, — at New Milford there was a 
Quaker Meeting established in 1729, fifteen years before 
Quaker Hill — that the value of the lands in the Oblong was 
well advertised. From the fact noted by James Wood (The 
Purchase Meeting, p. 10) that "the first settlement in any 
considerable numbers was upon Quaker Hill in the Oblong," 
I infer that the uncommon promise of this hill land had been 
made known to the Quakers then assembling at this "Pur- 
chase in the Rye Woods," and that Quaker Hill was settled 
in response to the stimulus of valuable, fertile lands offered for 
occupation and ownership. 

It seems to have been the desire of the first settlers to form a 
community where they could live apart, maintain their 
form of religion and possess land fertile and rich. The Quakers 
are always shrewd as to economic affairs, and the business mo- 
tive is never lost sight of in the spiritual inner light. In choosing 
Quaker Hill soil they selected ground which after one hundred 
and sixty-seven years is the richest in the region, sustains the 
best dairies, and is able longer than any other in the neighbor- 



45^: 










-■ > •- 1 

. _ ,- « 

c r" c o 

■J z ex -r 

Oh 4 00 .2 









THE ASSEMBLING 1 7 

hood in time of drought to afford abundant green grass and 
verdure. 

To this place thus sechided, came Benjamin Ferriss in , 
1728, and Nathan Birdsall. They settled upon the sites ; 
marked 31 and 39; which are 1,200 and 1,100 feet above the 
sea, and very near the highest ground for many miles. There 
was at this time, 1729, a meeting of Friends at New Milford, 
nine miles away ; but these two men came from Purchase Meet- 
ing in the town of Rye, forty miles directly to the South. There 
soon followed others, bearing the names, Irish, Wing, Briggs, 
Toffey, Akin, Taber, Russell, Osborn, Merritt, Dakin, Hoag. 
In ten years the tide of settlement was flowing full. In 
forty years the little community was filled with as many 
as could profitably find a living. 

Complete records of the sources of this immigration are not 
available. John Cox, Jr., Librarian of the Yearly Aleeting of 
Friends, says "the records do not show in any direct way 
where the members came from. A few came from Long 
Island meetings by way of Purchase, but most of them from 
the East, and I believe from Massachusetts. Indirectly the 
records show that the members occasionally went on visits 
into New England, and took certificates of clearance there 
(to marry)." Dartmouth, Mass., a town between Fall River 
and New Bedford, was the original home of so many of them 
that it easily leads all localities as a source of Quaker Hill an- 
cestry. The Akin, Taber, Briggs families came from Dart- 
mouth, which was in a region of both temporary and permanent 
Quaker settlement. Quaker Hill, R. I., is within fifteen 
miles of Dartmouth. The residents of Quaker Hill, New 
York, preserve traditions of the returns of the early Friends 
"to Rhode Island." There is a Briggs family tradition of the 
first pair of boots owned on the Hill, which were borrowed in 
turn by every man who made a visit to the ancestral home at 
Dartmouth. 



1 8 QUAKER HILL 

It is probable also that some of the original residents came 
from Long Island, though from what localities I do not know. 
The minutes of Purchase Meeting at Rye, through which 
meeting most of the Quaker Hill settlers came, indicate in only 
a limited number of cases that the immigrant came from a far- 
ther point; and leave the impression that the Friend so com- 
mended to the Oblong was already a resident of "the Pur- 
chase," or of its related meetings at Flushing on Long Island. 
An example is the case of William Russell and his wife, notable 
pioneers, the earliest residents of Site 25, whose letter from 
Purchase Meeting in 1741 indicates only that they came to 
Oblong from Purchase. 

The settlement of the Hill continued from the early years, 
1 728- 1 73 1, at which it began, until 1770, when the community 
may be said to have been complete. The land was supporting 
by that time all it would bear. Since that time the number of 
houses on the Plill has remained about the same, as will be 
seen from a comparison of the Maps i and 2, the one made 
for Washington in 1778-80 and the other being a tracing of 
the map of the Topographical Survey of the United States 
Government of recent date. 

The extent of this population resident upon the Hill is 
shown in the lists of persons whose names appear in Appendix 
A, which is a census of the heads of families in the Meeting 
in the year 1761 ; added to which is a list of names which ap- 
pear in the minutes of the Meeting in years immediately fol- 
lowing. These lists show the growth of the population under 
study, in the years from 1761 to 1780, for there are whole 
families omitted from the list of 1761, who are named in the 
minutes in succeeding years. An instance is that of Paul and 
Isaac Osborn, who came from Rhode Island in 1760.* 

* Richard Osborn — A Reminiscence, by Margaret B. Monahan, Quaker Hill 
Local History Series, No. VIIL P- lo. 



the; assembung 19 

As this list of members of the meeting shows the actual 
size of the population resident upon the Hill in 1761, the other 
list published in Appendix B, containing the names of those 
who traded at the Merritt store in 1771, exhibits, with startling 
vividness, the importance of Quaker Hill at that time. Little 
as the place is now, and geographically remote and hard of 
access always, it was evidently in the years named a center 
of a far-reaching country trade. This list is published in full, 
exactly as the names appear on Daniel Merritt's ledger, to 
convey this impression; and by contrast, the impression of the 
shrinkage in the years since the railway changed the currents 
of trade. It is published also as a basis of this study, being 
a numerical description, in the rough, of the problem we are 
studying. And a third use vvhich such a list may serve is that 
of information to those interested in genealogy. It is a veri- 
table mine of information, suggestion, and even color, of the 
life of that tim.e — as indeed are the ancient ledgers, bound in 
calf, and kept Avith exquisite care, by this colonial merchant. 
In these old records are suggested, though not described, the 
lives of a hard-working, prosperous population, filling the 
countryside, laying the foundations of fortunes which are 
to-day enriching descendants. It was a community without 
an idler, v.ith trades and occupations so many as to be inde- 
pendent of other communities, hopeful, aboundmg in credit, 
laying plans for generations to come, and living bountifully, 
heartily from day to day. 

Every item in these mercantile records is of interest and 
full of suggestion, from the names of the negro slaves, who 
had accounts on the books, to the products brought for sale 
by one customer after another, by which they liquidated their 
accounts ; from the "quart of rum" bought by so many with 
every "trading," to the Greek Testament and Latin Grammar 
bought by solid Thomas Taber, who wrote his name in real 
estate by his thrift and force, if he did not write it in dead 
lanofuasfes. 



CHAPTER IV. 

ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. 

The economic activity of the early Quaker community was 
varied. All they consumed they had to produce and manu- 
facture. Though the stores sold cane sugar, the farmers made 
of maple sap in the spring both sugar and syrup, and in the fall 
they boiled down the juice of sweet apples to a syrup, which 
served for "sweetness" in the ordinary needs of the kitchen. 

Every man was in some degree a farmer, in that each 
household cultivated the soil. On every farm all wants had to 
be supplied from local resources, so that mixed farming was 
the rule. The land which its modern owners think unsuited 
to anything but grass, because it is such "heavy, clay soil," 
was made in the i8th century to bear, in addition to the 
grass for cattle and sheep, wheat, rye, oats and corn, flax, 
potatoes, apples. Of whatever the farmer was to use he must 
produce the raw material from the soil, and the manufacture 
of it must be within the community. 

Two lists which come to us from early days cast light on 
the population and occupations of the early period. One is 
the sheriff's list of landowners in Dutchess County in 1740, 
on which is no name of any farmer then resident on Quaker 
Hill. The other list is that of those who claimed exemption 
from military duty in 1755; 38 are from Oblong and 21 from 
Beekman, many of them being Quakers resident on the Oblong. 
This list is as follows : 

Joshua Shearman, Beekman Prec'nt, shoemaker ; Moses 
Shearman,*Beekman Prec'nt, laborer ; Daniel Shearman, Beek- 
man Prec'nt, laborer ; Joseph Doty, Beekman Prec'nt, black- 



"ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES 21 

smith; John Wing, Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Zebulon Ferris 
(Oblong), Beekman Prec'nt, farmer; Joseph Smith, son of 
Rich'd, Beekman Prec'nt, laborer; Robert Whiteley, Beekman 
Prec'nt, farmer; Elijah Doty, Oblong House, carpenter; Philip 
Allen, Oblong, weaver ; Richard Smith, Oblong, farmer ; James 
Aiken, Oblong, blacksmith ; Abrah'm Chase, son of Henry, 
Oblong, farmer ; David Hoeg, Oblong, ; John Hoeg, Ob- 
long, farmer ; Jonathan Hoeg, Oblong, blacksmith ; Amos 
Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, laborer; William Hoeg, son of 
David, Oblong, farmer; John Hoeg, son of John, Oblong, 
farmer; Ezekiel Hoeg, Oblong, laborer; Judah Smith, Oblong, 
tailor; Matthew Wing, Oblong, ; Timothy Dakin, Ob- 
long, farmer; Jonathan Dakin, Oblong, laborer; Samuel Rus- 
sell, Oblong, laborer ; John Fish, Oblong, farmer ; Reed Ferris, 
Oblong, shoemaker; Benjamin Ferris, Junr., Oblong, laborer; 
Joseph Akin, Oblong, blacksmith; Israel Howland, Oblong, 
farmer; EHsha Akin, Oblong, farmer; Isaac Haviland, Ob- 
long, blacksmith; Nathan Soule, son of George, Oblong, 
farmer; James Birdsall, Oblong, laborer; Daniel Chase, Ob- 
long, farmer ; Silas Mossher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, 
farmer; William Mosher, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; 
Silvester Richmond, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer ; Jesse 
Irish, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; David Irish, Os- 
wego in Beekman Prec't, farmer ; W^illiam Irish, Oswego in 
Beekman Prec't, farmer ; Josiah Bull, Oswego in Beekman 
Prec't, farmer; Josiah Bull, Junr., Oswego in Beekman Prec't, 
farmer; Allen Moore, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; 
Andrew Moore, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; William 
Gififord, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; Nathaniel Yeo- 
mans, Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer ; Eliab Yeomans, 
Oswego in Beekman Prec't, farmer; W'illiam Parks, Oswego 
in Beekman Prec't, farmer. 

This list mentions six occupations : the farmer, blacksmith, 
tailor, shoemaker, carpenter and laborer. With these six a 



22 QUAKJvK lllLL 

frontier community could live, for every man of them was a 
potential butcher, tanner, trader. There is record of others 
in later years, when the communal life had become differen- 
tiated. There were at various times in the Quaker century 
stores at four places on the Hill. The Merrit store, at Site 
28, descended to the sons of Daniel Merritt, and finally 
to James Craft. There was a store in Deuell Hollow, kept by 
Benjamin and Silas Deuell for several years. There is extant 
one bill of merchandise purchased by them of Edward and 
William Laight, merchants of New York, the amount being 
£200 and the date Feb. 25, 1785. The Akin stores at Sites 47 
and 46, were kept by Daniel and Albro Akin, and the store 
at Site 53, by John Toffey. These stores during the period of 
the Quaker community were in trade largely by barter, taking all 
the conmiodities the farmer had beyond his immediate use, and 
selling sugar, coffee, cloth and other commodities which after 
181 5, as will be shown later, rapidly increased in number and 
in quantity. The use of money mcreased at the same period. 
The phrase still lingers in Quaker Hill speech: "I am going 
to the store to do some trading," though the milk farmer has 
engaged in no barter for fifty years. 

In the culminating period of the Quaker Community, which 
followed the Revolutionary War, the following were some of 
the occupations practiced on the Hill, the record or remem- 
brance of which is preserved :* 

Abram Thomas was a blacksmith, at Site I4,t and is said 
to have made the nails used in building the Meeting House. 
George Kirby, at Site 99 >4, had a blacksmith shop; there was 
another at Site xioo, now abandoned on Burch Hill, kept by 
Joel Winter Church, where Washington's charger was shod, 
and the bill was paid at the close of the v^ar. 

But the most notable smithy was at Site 41, where now 

* See "Some Glimpses of the Past," by Alicia Hopkins Taber, 1906; Quaker 
Hill Series. 

t See Map 2. 



ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES 23 

stands one of the oldest houses on the Hill. Here Davis 
Marsh wrought in iron, and the sound of his trip-hammer 
audible for miles smote its own remembered impression upon 
the ears of those ancient generations. Doubtless the favored 
location of Marsh's shop in the neighborhood most central, 
as is shown in Chapter HI, Part HI, gave it greater use. 
There was at one time a forge in the Glen at Site 66, to which 
magnetic ore was hauled from Brewster to be worked. 

A "smith shop" is also noted on Erskine's map for Wash- 
ington in 1778 at Site xiii. The most important manufac- 
turing business of the community, however, was the wagon- 
worker's shop at Site 45, kept by Hiram Sherman. Under 
the general title of wagon maker he manufactured all mov- 
ables in wood and iron, from fancy wagons to coffins. 

Other trades were of increasing variety as the century of 
isolation proceeded. Shoemakers went from house to house 
to make shoes for the family, of the leather from the backs 
of the farmer's own cattle, tanned on the farm or not far 
away. Reed Ferris was a shoemaker, in whose residence at 
Site 99 Washington was entertained in September, 1778, until 
he took up Headquarters at John Kane's. Stephen Riggs was 
a shoemaker. Three tanneries were maintained on the Hill 
in the bloom of the Quaker community by Ransom Aldrich 
about Site 13; Amos Asborn, at Site x2i, who also made 
pottery there; and Isaac Ingersoll, at Site 134. 

Albro Akin had a sawmill in the Glen, and a gristmill was 
also located there in an early period. William Taber had a 
gristmill and also a cloth mill, consisting of carding machine, 
fulling mill, and apparatus for pressing, coloring and dressing 
cloth. John Toffey, at Site 53, and Joseph Seeley, at Site 15, 
and some of the Arnolds, near Site 12, were hatters. Jephtha 
Sabin, at Site 74, and Joseph Hungerford were saddlers and 
harnessmakers. 



2 A QUAKER HILIv 

Every farmer and indeed every householder raised hogs. 
Pork was salted, as it is to-day, for winter use, in barrels of 
brine. Hogs also were extensively raised and butchered for 
market, at a year and a half old, the meat being taken to 
Poughkeepsie by wagon, and thence to New York. Many 
who raised more pork than their own use demanded ex- 
changed it at the stores. Fields of peas were raised to feed 
the hogs. 

Sheep also were raised for their wool ; their meat afforded 
an acceptable variety in farmer's fare and their hides had 
many uses. David Irish, Daniel and David Merritt, Jonathan 
A. Taber and George P. Taber were farmers whose product 
of wool was notably fine and abundant. Jonathan Akin 
Taber "kept about eleven hundred sheep, some merino and some 
saxony." 

Butter and cheese making were an important part of the 
business and income of the farmer's family, the butter being 
packed and sent weekly to the Hudson River boats for New 
York markets, or to Bridgeport or New Haven — a two-days' 
journey in either case. The cheese was ripened, or cured, 
being rubbed and turned every day, and kept until the dealers 
came around to inspect and purchase. On every farm was 
kept a flock of geese, which were picked once in six weeks to 
keep up the supply of feather beds and to furnish the requisite 
number for the outfit of each daughter of the family. 

In the year 1767, Oblong Meeting took action which re- 
sulted, after seven years of agitation, in the clear declaration 
by the Yearly Meeting of New York, earliest of such acts, 
in favor of the freeing of slaves. This was one hundred years 
before the Emancipation Proclamation. 

Wilson's "Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America" 
says that "Members of the Society of Friends took the lead in 
the opposition to slavery." There had been action taken in 



ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES 25 

1688 by a small body of Germantown Quakers, in the form of 
a petition to their Yearly Meeting against "buying, selling and 
holding men in slavery." But to this the Yearly Meeting, 
after eight years of delay, replied only that "the members 
should discourage the introduction of slavery, and be careful 
of the moral and intellectual training of such as they held in 
servitude." 

Meantime the Quaker Meetings on Long Island, in New- 
York and Philadelphia took action recognizing slavery, with 
only a gradual tendency to regard the institution of slavery 
with disfavor. Now the time had come for putting the denom- 
ination in array against the institution. 

There was a preacher of the Quakers who traveled much 
from 1746 to 1767 through the colonies, proclaiming that 
"the practice of continuing slavery is not right;" and that 
liberty is the natural right equally of all men." In the last 
year of his propaganda occurred the event notable in local 
history. This was thirteen years before the action of the 
State of Pennsylvania, which initiated the lawmaking for 
emancipation among the northern colonies. It was "twenty 
years before Wilberforce took the first step in England 
against the slave-trade." The record of this action is as 
follows : 

"At a (Yearly) Aleeting at the Meeting House at Flushing 
the 30th day of the 5th month, 1767, a Querie from the Quar- 
terly Meeting of the Oblong in Relation to buying and Selling 
Negroes was Read in this meeting and it was concluded to be 
left for consideration on the minds of friends until the Next 
Yearly Meeting. The Query is as follows : If is not con- 
sistant with Christianity to buy and Sell our Fellowmen for 
Slaves during their Lives, & their Posterities after them, then 
whether it is consistant with a Christian Spirit to keep those 
in Slavery that we have already in possession by Purchase, 
Gift or any otherways." 



26 QUAKER HILI< 

The year after, not without due hesitation, a committee 
was appointed which ''drew an Essay on that subject which 
was read and approved and is as follows : We are of the mind 
that it is not convenient (considering the circumstances of 
things amongst us) to give an Answer to this Querie, at least 
at this time, as the answering of it in direct terms manifestly 
tends to cause divisions and may Introduce heart burnings 
and Strife amongst us, which ought to be Avoided, and Char- 
ity exercised, and persuasive methods pursued and that which 
makes for peace. We are however fully of the mind that 
Negroes as Rational Creatures are by nature born free, and 
where the way opens liberty ought to be extended to them, 
and they not held in Bondage for Self ends. But to turn 
them out at large Indiscriminately — which seems to be the 
tendency of the Querie, will, we Apprehend, be attended with 
great Inconveniency, as some are too young and some too old 
to obtain a livelyhood for themselves." 

Here, then, is the first action in a legislative body in New 
York State, upon the freeing of slaves. The "Querie from 
Oblong" had secured a clear deliverance in favo^- of the essen- 
tial right of the negro as a man, in favor of his being freed 
"where the way opened," and against the holding of man for 
the service of another. The only hesitation of the meeting was 
frankly stated; emancipation was not to be pushed to the 
point of division among Christians, and was not to be accom- 
plished to the impoverishment of the negro. 

Yet if this action seems to any one like "trimming," it was 
followed by other deliverances increasingly clear and em- 
phatic. Three years later Friends were forbidden to sell their 
slaves, except under conditions controlled by the Meeting. 
Throughout the communities of Friends the agitation was being 
carried on, and the meetings were anxious to purge themselves 
of the evil. 

Finally in 1775 came the clear utterance of the Yearly 



ECONOMIC ACTIVITIES 27 

Meeting in favor of emancipation without conditions: "it 
being our solid judgment that all in profession with us who 
hold Negroes ought to restore to them their natural right to 
liberty as soon as they arrive at a suitable age for freedom." 
At this meeting the Oblong was represented by Joseph Irish, 
Abner Hoag and Paul Ostorn. 

It only remains to picture the rest of the process by which 
slavery was purged away on Quaker Hill. In 1775 the prac- 
tice of buying and selling slaves had come to an end, and no 
public abuse was noted by the Meeting in the treatment ac- 
corded to slaves by their masters. The next year there was 
but one slave owned by a member of the Meeting; and the day 
he was freed in the fall of 1777 was counted by the Meeting 
so notable that the clerk was directed to make a minute of the 
event. The owner had been Samuel Field, and the slave was 
called Philips. Another manumission in 1779 is recorded, but 
it was doubtless in the case of a new resident of the Hill, for 
it is recorded without signs of the joy exhibited in the freedom 
of Philips. 

In the years 1782-3 the final act in emancipating the local 
slaves was taken, in the investigation by a committee of the 
Meeting into the condition of the freed slaves, and the obliga- 
tions of their old masters to them. It was not very cordially 
received at first, but in the third year of the life and labors of 
the committee it was reported by them that "the negroes ap- 
pear to be satisfied without further settlement." So the first 
American community to free herself from slavery required but 
sixteen years of agitation fully to complete the process. 



CHAPTER V. 

AMUSEMENTS IN THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. 

The Quaker community had httle time for amuse- 
ments, and less patience. The discipHne of the Meeting 
levelled its guns at the play spirit, and for a century men were 
threatened, visited, disowned if necessary, for "going to frol- 
licks," and "going to places of amusement." The Meeting 
House records leave no room for doubt as to the opinion held 
by the Society of Friends upon the matter of play. 

An account is given elsewhere of the discipline of the 
Meeting in its struggle against immorality and "frollicking." 
The following quotation from James Woods' "The Purchase 
Meeting," vividly depicts the confused elements of the social 
life of that time: "On great occasions such as the holding 
of a Quarterly Meeting, the population turned out en masse. 
Piety and worldliness both observed the day. The latter class 
gathered about the meeting house, had wrestling matches and 
various athletic sports in the neighboring fields, and horse 
races on the adjacent roads. The meetings regularly ap- 
pointed committees as a police force to keep order about the 
meeting house during the time of worship and business." 

The stories told by old Quaker Hill residents of the gather- 
ings about the meeting house, even on First Day, or Sunday, 
confirm the above quotation. The field opposite the meeting 
house, for years after 1769, when the earliest meeting house 
was moved away from that site, was used as a burial 
ground, and later, no headstones being placed in those early 
days, as a space for tethering horses. An old resident tells 
me that crowds of men were always about the meeting house 
before and after meeting, and even during meeting, and that in 



AMUSEMENTS 29 

later years the resident of Site No. 32, who owned valuable 
horses, used to exhibit a blooded stallion on a tether, leading 
him up and down to the admiration of the horse-owners pres- 
ent, and to their probable interest. 

These conditions seem to have continued through that 
whole century. The play spirit had no permitted or au- 
thorized occasions. It had to exercise itself with the other 
instincts, in the common gatherings. It was, as far as we 
can see, a time of asceticism. Men were forbidden rather than 
invited, in those days. 

The Meeting not only provided no play opportunities, but 
it forbade the attendance of its members upon the "frollicks," 
which then were held, as nowadays they are held, in the 
country side. A gathering with plenty to eat, and in those 
days a free indulgence in drink on the part of the men, with 
music of the fiddler, and dancing, this was a 'frollick" — that 
horror of the meeting house elders. Indeed, it was of inci- 
dental moral detriment ; for it was outlawed amusement, and 
being under the ban, was controlled by men beyond the influ- 
ence or control of the meeting. The young people of the 
Quaker families, and sometimes their elders, yielded to the 
fascinations of these gatherings. The unwonted excitement 
of meeting, the sound of music, playing upon the capacity for 
motor reactions in a people living and laboring outdoors, in- 
flamed beyond control by rum and hard cider, soon led to 
lively, impulsive activities and physical exertions, both in 
immoderate excess and in disregard of all the inhibitions of 
tradition and of conscience. That there was a close relation of 
these "froUicks" with the sexual immorality of the period is 
probable. 

Of more concern to us here is the observation, which is 
made with caution, that the attitude of the community to 
amusements was not conducive to moral betterment, because 
amusement was not specialized. The repression of the play 



30 QUAKER HILI, 

spirit, offering it no occasions, recognizing no times and places 
as appropriate for it, disturbed the equilibrium of life, forced 
the normal animal spirits of the population to impulsive and 
explosive expressions and deprived them of the regulative 
control of the community. 

It is probable that that early period had modes of amuse- 
ment the record of which is wholly lost. There are few sources 
existing to inform us of the amusements of laboring classes. 
Hints occur in such records as that of the sale of powder and 
shot, of fishhooks and a quart of rum, at the Merritt store, 
in 1 771, to the Vaughns. Seven years later the Vaughns were 
the Tory "cowboys," who robbed the defenceless neighborhood, 
until their leader was killed by Captain Pearce, during the 
Revolution. 

It is probable that then the community wore the aspect 
which now it wears, of industry without play ; and that mem- 
bers went elsewhere for their amusement, the acknowledged 
leaders in which were resident in other neighborhoods and 
communities. 

The recreation of the body of working population of the 
Hill was incidental to the religious assemblies. In these 
meetings they took an intense and a very human pleasure. 
Their solitary, outdoor labor was performed in an intense at- 
mosphere of communal interaction. He who raised hogs was 
to sell them, not to a distant market, but to Daniel Merritt, 
or John Toffey, the storekeepers. He who made shoes went 
from house to house, full of news, always talking, always 
hearing. He who wove heard not his creaking loom, but the 
voice of the storekeeper or of the neighbor to whom he would 
sell. The cheeses a woman pressed and wiped in a morning 
were to be sold, not far away to persons unseen, but to neigh- 
bors known, whose tastes were nicely ascertained and regarded. 

The result was that meetings on First Day and Fourth 
Day were times of intense pleasure, occasions of all-around 



AMUSEMENTS 31 

interest : not mere business interest, but incidentally a large 
satisfaction of the play instinct, especially for the working 
and mature persons. The young, too, had their happiness and 
enjoyment of one another in a multitude of ways, in addi- 
tion to those boisterous games described above by Mr. James 
Wood. Their intense friendships and lively enterprises wert 
probably not so easy to confine to the bounds of sober, staicl 
meetings, but no less did their merry good spirits fill those 
assemblies. The galleries of the old Meeting House were 
built in 1800 for the young, who were expected to sit there 
during meeting. The wooden curtains between the "men's 
part" and the "women's part" are especially thorough in their 
exclusion of even an eyeshot from one side to the other. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS. 

In the Introduction to Professor Carver's "Sociolog}'' and 
Social Progress" is a passage of great significance to one who 
would understand Quaker Hill, or indeed any community, es- 
pecially if it be religiously organized. The writer refers to : 
"a most important psychic factor, namely the power of idealiz- 
ation. This may be defined, not very accurately, as the power 
of making believe, a factor which sociologists have scarcely 
appreciated as yet. We have such popular expressions as 
"making a virtue of necessity," which indicates that there is 
a certain popular appreciation of the real significance of this 
power, but we have very little in the way of a scientific appre- 
ciation of it. 

"One of the greatest resources of the hum?n mind is its 
ability to persuade itself that what is necessary is noble or 
dignified or honorable or pleasant. For example, the greater 
part of the human race has been found to live under conditions 
of almost incessant warfare. War being a necessity from 
which there was no escape, it was a great advantage to be 
able to glorify it, to persuade ourselves that it was a noble 
calling — in other words, a good in itself. 

"Another example is found in the case of work. Work is 
a necessity as imperious as war ever was. Looked at frankly 
and truthfully, work is a disagreeable necessity and not a good 
in itself. Yet by persuading ourselves that work is a blessing, 
that it is dignified and honorable, our willingness to work is 
materially increased, and therefore the process of adaptation 
is facilitated — in other woids, progress is accelerated. Among 
the most efifective agencies for the promotion of progress. 



IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS 33 

therefore, must be included those which stimulate this power 
of idealization. In short, he who in any age helps to idealize 
those factors and forces upon which the progress of his age 
depends, is perhaps the most useful man, the most powerful 
agent in the promotion of human well-being, even though 
from the strictly realistic pomt of view he only succeeds in 
making things appear other than they really are. From the 
sociologist's point of view this is the mission of art and 
preaching of all kinds." 

The quotation from Professor Carver bears the impression 
of incompleteness, or rather of suggestiveness. If "making a 
virtue of necessity" is idealization, is not symbolism also a 
form of "make believe." If the "ability to persuade oneself 
that what is necessary is noble or dignified or honorable or 
pleasant," is exhibited on Quaker Hill as a "most important 
psychic factor," so is also the idealization of the commonplace 
the "making believe" that peace and plainness, that simple, 
old-fashioned dress, and seventeenth century forms of speech 
are spiritual and are serviceable to the believing mind. The 
power of idealization is nowhere exhibited as a social force 
more clearly than in a Quaker community. Professor Carver's 
word, "make believe," is most accurate. Quakers act with all 
sincerity the drama of life, using costume and artificial speech, 
and attaching to all conduct peculiar mannerisms ; casting 
over all action a special veil of complacent serenity ; all which 
are parts in their realization of the ideal of life. Their funda- 
mental principle is that the divine spirit dwells and acts in the 
heart of every man ; not in a chosen few, not in the elect 
only, but in all hearts. Quaker Hill to this day acts this out, 
in that every person in the community is known, thought upon, 
reckoned and estimated by every other. Towns on either side 
have a neglected population area, but Quaker Hill has none. 
Pawling in its other neighborhoods has forgotten roads, de- 
spised cabins, in which dwell persons for whom nobody cares, 



34 QUAKER HILL 

drunkards, ill-doers, whom others forget and ignore. Quaket 
Hill ignores no one. There are, indeed, rich and poor, but 
the former employ the latter, know their state, enjoy their 
peculiarities, relish their humor. It has apparently always 
been so. Elsewhere I have described the measures taken by 
popular subscription to replace the losses suffered by the 
humbler members of the community, in the tools of life (see 
Chapter VII). It need not be said that the poorer members 
bear the rich in mind. Every person resident on the Hill has 
come to partake in this sense of the community, this practice 
of new Quakerism. No one is out of sight and yet there is 
no dream of equality behind this communal sense. It is as 
far from a communistic, as from a charitable state of mind. 
It is the result of years of belief in common men and common 
things. 

This "make believe" that commonplace things are the spir- 
itual things was a corrolary of George Fox's life as much as 
of his doctrine. He opposed pomp and ritual, salaried priests, 
ordinations and consecrations ; he disblieved in "the imposition 
of hands." His followers therefore went so far as to find in 
plainness a new sanctity. They adapted at once the "plain 
garb" of the period of William Penn and Robert Barclay, and 
the generations of men who followed felt themselves morally 
bettered by a drab coat and breeches, a white neck-cloth, and 
a broad-brimmed brown hat ; the women by dresses of simple 
lines, low tones of color, bonnets of peculiar shape, shielding 
the eyes on either side. 

Of course in time this exceptional garb by its uniqueness 
defeated the very desire George Fox had for "plainness." It 
was not commonplace but extraordinary. Roby Osborn's garb 
is thus described by her biographer: "Her wedding gown 
was a thick, lustreless silk, of a delightful yellowish olive, her 
bonnet white. Beneath it her dark hair was smoothly banded, 
and from its demure shelter her eyes looked gravely out. Her 



IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS 35 

vest was a fine tawny brown, of a sprigged pattern, both gown 
and vest as artistically harmonious as the product of an East- 
ern loom. Pieces of both were sewn into a patchwork quilt, 
now a family heirloom."* 

For more than a century now "plainness in dress" has been 
extravagance in dress. A proper Quaker hat for man or 
woman costs twice or thrice what plain people of the same 
station in life would pay. But be it so. In its day, which is 
now gone — for only one person now wears "plain dress" on 
Quaker Hill — it was a true expression of the "make believe" 
of sanctity in plainness. The quiet colors, the prescribed un- 
worldliness involved a daily discipline, and infused into the 
wearer an emotional experience which mere economy and real 
commonness would never so continuously have effected. 

The "plain speech" has the same effect. It is part of the 
same dramatic celebration of an ideal. It is a use of quaint 
and antique forms, not grammatically correct nor scriptural, 
in which "thee" takes the place of "thou" and you in the 
singular, both in the nominative and objective cases. It is 
not used with the forms of the verb of solemn style, but with 
common forms, as "thee has" instead of "thou hast." An- 
other element of the "plain speech" is the use of such terms as 
"farewell" for "good day" — which is declared to be untruthful 
on bad days ! The Quakers also address one another by their 
first names, and the old-fashioned Friends addressed everybody 
so, refusing to use such titles as "Mr.," "Mrs.," or "Miss." 

Of late years the younger members of the Meeting, while 
maintaining their standing there, have used with persons not 
in the Meeting the ordinary forms of speech, as they have re- 
fused to assume the Quaker plain garb. With fellow-Quakers 
and with members of their own families they say "thee." 

Before the period of the mixed community this power of 

* "Richard Osborn — a Reminiscence," by Margaret B. Monahan; Quaker Hill 
Series, 1903. 



36 QUAKER HILL 

idealization, of "making believe," had wrought its greatest 
effects, but it still has full course and power without the 
highest direction. The minds of the residents of the Hill are 
very suggestible ; but the persons who have the power to im- 
plant the suggestion are no longer inspired as of old, with a 
sublime and unearthly ideal. They are only animated with 
an economic one. But the result is the same. It is social, 
rather than religious. It was one thing for the early Friends 
to cement together a community through the feeling that in 
every man was the Spirit of God. A wonderful appetite was 
that for the assimilation of new members coming into the 
community. It was a doctrine that made all the children birth- 
right members of the Meeting and so of the community. 

But in our later time, between 1895 and 1905, this power 
of "making believe" had suffered the strain of a division of the 
meeting. It was harder to believe that the Spirit of God was 
in all men, when half the community was set off as "unortho- 
dox." It had suffered the strain of seeing the wide social 
difference paused by money. Yet it bravely played the game. 
Children are not more adapt at "making believe" than were 
these old Friends. They deceived even themselves ; and their 
"pretending" assimilated into the communal life every new- 
comer. For it created underneath all differences a sense of 
oneness ; it kept alive, in all divisions, many of the operations 
of unity. It compelled strangers and doctrinal enemies to 
"make believe" to be friends. 

I find it difficult to describe this elusive force of the com- 
munal spirit in the place, just as the communal character of 
the place is itself evanescent, while always powerful. I know 
clearly only this, that it proceeded, and still on Quaker Hill 
proceeds from the old religious inheritance, and from the 
present religious character of the place ; that it tends directly 
to the creation of the community of all men, of all dift'erent 
groups, and that it is ready at hand at all time, to be called 



IDEALS OF THE QUAKERS 37 

to the assistance of anyone who knows how to appeal to that 
communal unity ; and that it is a power of idealization, mean- 
ing by that "a power of making believe." In this power, I 
recognize this community as being more expert and better 
versed than any I have ever known. 

The dramatic expression of an ideal has had great social 
power. Upon the casual observer or visitor it has wrought 
with the effect of a charm to impress upon them in a subtle 
way the ideal of Quakerism. Expressed in words, it would 
have no interest : acted out so quaintly, it awakens admiration, 
interest, and imitation, not of the forms, but always in some 
degree of the substance of the Quaker ideal. 

Thus the Quaker ideal has given authority to the Friends, 
especially to the older and more conservative of them ; has 
furnished a subtle machinery for assimilating new members 
into the community and thus has been an organizing power. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MORALS OF THE QUAKER COMMUNITY. 

From the first the members found themselves subjected to 
a clear, simple standard of morals. Its dominion was un- 
broken for one hundred years, and came to an end with the 
Division of the Meeting; though that event was a result as 
much as a cause of its termination. For one hundred years 
a local ethical code prevailed. While they lived apart the 
Quakers in their community life rejoiced in the unbroken 
sway of a communal code of morals, the obedience to which 
made for survival and economic success. When, with better 
roads to Poughkeepsie and to Fredericksburg, newcomers 
began to invade the community; when in 1849 the railroad 
came to the neighborhood, immersing the Quakers in the 
world economy, the Quaker code was insufficient, retarded 
rather than assisted survival, and rather forbade than encour- 
aged success. It therefore lost its force. Only in a few indi- 
viduals has it survived. 

The residents of the Hill, from their earliest settlement in 
1728 to the time of the Division in 1828, knew no other 
government than that of the Meeting. They accepted no other 
authority, hoped for public good through no other agency, 
even read no other literature, than that of the Quaker Monthly 
Meeting of the Oblong. The religious Meeting House was 
also the City Hall, State House, and Legislature for the 
patriotism, as it was the focus of the worship and doctrinal 
activity of this population. This cannot be stated too strongly, 
for there was no limit to its effect. It explains many things 
otherwise diverse and unexplained. 

During all the periods of war the Quakers showed their 



MORALS 39 

separateness by refusing to pay taxes, lest they contribute to 
the support of armies. In the Revolution, the Meeting exer- 
cised unflinching discipline, for the purpose of keeping mem- 
bers out of the patriot armies, and punished with equal vigor 
those who paid for the privilege of exemption from military 
duty and those who enlisted in the ranks. In every act of 
the discipline of the Quaker Community appears the purpose 
of the Meeting, namely, to keep its members to itself and away 
from all other moral and spiritual control. This will appear 
in definite illustrations below. 

The standard of morals which the Meeting thus upheld 
with jealous care was a simple one, and logically derived from 
the distinctive doctrine of the Society of Friends. That the 
Spirit of God dwells in every man was their belief,* and from 
1650, when Fox was called "a Quaker" before Justice Bennett 
at Derby, England, to the Division in 1830, they applied this 
doctrine in practical, rather than in metaphysical ways. They 
were a moral, rather than a theological people. It will appear in 
this chapter that only when the moral grip of the Meeting 
was broken in a division did doctrinal questions come to dis- 
cussion on the Hill. 

The moral bearing of the one cardinal doctrine of Quaker- 
ism is well expressed in the following quotation from a Friend 
qualified to speak with authority : 

"The Friends have been consistent in all their peculiarities 
with one central principle, the presence and inspiration of the 

• Francis B. Gummere of Haverford College says of George Fox, the founder 
of the Society of Friends: "The central point of his doctrine is the direct respon- 
sibility of each soul to God, without mediation of priest or form, because of the 
presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart of every human being." Johnson's Uni- 
versal Cyclopedia, 1894. 

The following is authoritative for the Society: "We believe in no principle of 
life, light or holiness, but the influence of the Holy Spirit of God, bestowed on 
mankind, in various measures and degrees, through Jesus Christ our Lord. It is 
the capacity to receive this blessed influence, which, in an especial manner, gives 
man pre-eminence above the beasts that perish; which distinguishes him, in every 
nation and in every clime, as an object of the redeeming love of God; as a being 
not only intelligent but responsible; . . . — "A Declaration of Some of the 
Fundamental Doctrines of Christian Truth, as held by the Religious Society of 
Friends." 



40 QUAKER HILL 

Divine Spirit in the human soul. This has been the reason for 
their opposition to slavery. They felt, You cannot hold in 
slavery god! And God is in this black man's life, therefore 
you cannot enslave God in him. So you must not inflict 
capital punishment upon this man in whom is God. 

"The same argument dignified woman, who was made the 
equal of man. The same argument applies to the impos- 
sibility of war. You cannot think of God fighting against 
God. The Quaker had no sentimental idea of sufifering; but 
he believed that you cannot take life, in which is God. 

"The same argument applied to weights and measures ; the 
Quakers early demanded that they be ofificially sealed. So 
they believed in only one standard of truth, rather than one 
for conversation and one for a court of justice. No oaths 
were necessary for those who spoke for God all the time."* 

In this belief one sees the principle on which were selected 
the reforms in which the Quaker Preacher was interested. 
"He appears to have had . . . his mind strongly influenced 
to an active protest against the evils of slavery, war, capital 
punishment and intemperance."! Each of these reforms was 
inspired by reverence for human life, which was thought to 
be desecrated or abused. 

This simple code expressed itself in abstinence from prac- 
tices believed to defile the body. Members of the Meeting 
early adopted a strict rule against the use of intoxicating 
Hquors. It is said of the ancestors of Richard Osborn that: 
"Of these six generations not a man has ever been known 
to use spirituous liquors, or tobacco, to indulge in profanity, 
or to be guilty of a hisronest action. "$ 

A sense of personal degradation underlay their opposition 
to poverty among members. There is record of an order of the 

*Mr. Tames Wood, in an address at Quaker Hill Conference, 1907. 

t "David Irish, A Memoir," by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer. 

i "Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence," by Margaret B. Monahan. 



MORALS 41 

Meeting, in 1775, ^or the purchase of a cow "to loan to 

Joseph ." The practice thus early observed has since 

then been unbroken. The member of the community who 
comes to want is at this day taken care of by popular sub- 
scription. Through the early century the Meeting accom- 
plished this end, sometimes by formal, sometimes by informal 
methods. In the later years of the nineteenth century it was 
accomplished by special funds to which everybody gave. Thus 
simply was poverty forestalled. The family assisted soon came 
to self-support again. No debt was incurred, and no obliga- 
tion remained to be discharged ; but every member of the 
Meeting and of the community felt obliged to give and was 
glad to give to this anti-poverty fund. The basis of it seems 
to have been respect for human embodiments of the Divine 
Spirit. 

This ideal of personality, divinely indwelt, created a sense 
of personal duty, even in opposition to all men. In the years 
of anti-slavery agitation David Irish and his sister "made 
their protest against slavery by abstaining as far as possible 
from slave-made products ; and together they made maple, to 
take the place of cane sugar, and used nothing but linen and 
woolen clothing (largely homespun)."* This later Quaker, 
possessed of the spirit of the community of his fathers, shows 
his inner conflict with the ideals of a competitive age in the 
expression "so far as possible." It was not as practicable in 
1855 to "abstain from slave-made products," as it would 
have been in the year 1755. 

The hospitality of the neighborhood expressed this simple 
code. It was the custom to entertain the traveler in any house 
to which he might come. It would have been wrong to ex- 
clude him ; he was welcomed with a dignified and formal 
respect by these old Friends, because entertainment of guests 

* "David Irish, A Memoir," by Mrs. Phoebe T. Wanzer. 



42 QUAKER HILL 

in those days was a vital reality, as well as a religious prac- 
tice. These settlers in the wild forests believed that in every 
wayfarer was a divine voice, a possible message from heaven. 
They also treated every traveler as a possible object of their 
"preachments," and spared not to "testify" to him of their 
peculiar beliefs and "leadings." It was the Friends' method 
of propagating their gospel to send men and women on 
journeys, without pay, to distant states and provinces. This 
religious touring was not peculiar to them, but it was made 
by them an official agency of great power in evangelizing the 
Colonies. 

As an itinerant Friend, Woolman, the anti-slavery apostle, 
came to the Hill in 176 — . So Paul Osborn joined himself 
to a party of Friends "travelling on truth's account," and 
with them visited the Carolinas, in the years before the 
Revolution. The same pioneer left in his will directions for 
the entertainment of such travellers upon his estate forever.* 

This religious itinerating was a part of the economic life 
of those days as well; for the Friends never separated the 
one from the other. Wherever they went they "testified," 
and to every place they came with shrewd appreciation of its 
value as a place of settlement. Says James Wood: "Each 
Quaker home as it was settled became a resting-place for those 
who followed, for it was a cardinal principle of Quaker hos- 
pitality to keep open house for all fellow-members, under all 
circumstances.f 

• To "friends travelling on truth's account" the doors of the old house always 
swung wide. Paul Osborn kept open house for "his friends, the people called 
Quakers," during his lifetime, and his will provides in the most minute and careful 
manner for his wife "the better to qualifye her to keep a house of entertainment 
for friends." . . . The "littel meadow in lot 29" he gave to Isaac Osborn, that 
"he shall keep well all horses of friends my wife shall send him;" and should 
Isaac "neglect the injunctions herein enjoined," and cease to keep such house of 
entertainment for friends then his right to certain legacies "shall descend and 
revolve to them, him or her that shall truly fulfill them." All his lands in the 
latter case Paul gives to the "Yearly Meeting for Friends, the people called 

Suakers, of Philadelphia." — "Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence," by Margaret B. 
onahan. 
t "The Bi-Centennial of the New York Yearly Meeting, An Historical Sketch," 
by James Wood, 1895. 



MORALS 43 

The development of the hospitaHty that was a part of the 
reUgion of the Quakers would be itself a sufficient study. It 
has furnished some of the most interesting chapters of the 
history of the Hill. It is now completely transformed, through 
the pressure of competitive economic life; and, with un- 
diminished activities, has become a means of revenue in "the 
keeping of boarders." Seven of the old Quaker homes, in the 
period of the Mixed Community, took on the aspect of small 
hotels. For this business the Quakers have a preparation in 
their history and traditions. They have an inbred genius 
for hospitality. They have also a thrift and capacity for 
"management" which have made their efforts successful. One 
is impressed in their houses by a union of abundance with 
economy, impossible to imitate. 

Like other American pioneer neighborhoods, of a religious 
type, the Quaker community at Oblong had a history in the 
matter of sexual morality. The relations of the sexes offered to 
the Friends a field in which their favorite doctrine of the in- 
dwelling divine spirit produced moral harvests. The records 
of Oblong Meeting are filled with cases of moral discipline. 
There is scarcely a meeting in whose minutes some case is 
not mentioned, either its initial, intermediate or final stages. 
No family was exempt from this experience. The best families 
furnished the culprits as often as they supplied the committees 
to investigate and to condemn. 

The regular method of procedure in marriage will best 
exhibit the moral standards of the time. When a couple would 
marry, they indicated to the Meeting their intention ; and a 
committee was at once appointed to investigate their "clear- 
ness." That is, these two must be free of other engagements, 
and must be free of debt or other incumbrance of such sort as 
would render marriage impossible or unadvisable. At the 
next monthly meeting the report of the committee advanced 
the case one stage ; and if they were found "clear of all 



44 QUAKER HILL 

Others," another committee was appointed "to see that the 
marriage was orderly performed." 

The parties on the day set appeared before the Meeting,* 
and in its regular course, stood up and said the words of 
mutual agreement which made them man and wife. A cer- 
tificate was used, and to it the guests signed their names. 
But no minister had official part in the ceremony. It was 
their belief, to which they adhered with logical strictness, that 
the divine spirit in each of the parties to a marriage made it 
sacred, and that in marrying they spoke the will of the Spirit. 

Entire continence was expected of every unmarried person, 
and the strictest marital faithfulness of man and wife, because 
of the sacredness of personal life. But in a pioneer society, 
through those rough early decades, when for long times war 
was disturbing the serenity of social life, the conduct of men 
and women, not mindful of propriety, was determined by the 
strong, masterful passions of an out of door people. Besides, 
the government of the Meeting was contrary to the general 
opinion of the countryside, and the Meeting House members 
were immersed in a population whose standards were looser, 
as well as sanctioned by authorities not recognized by the 
Meeting. The result was that in the first century of the Hill, 
1728 — 1828, there were many instances of sexual immorality, 
many accusations of married persons untrue to their vows, 
and a resulting attention of the whole community to this 
theme which we do not know to-day. Frankness of discus- 
sion of these matters prevailed. The punishments inflicted, 

* "It was Wednesday, the day of the regular mid-week meeting, and the house 
was crowded. The young people took their places upon the facing seats, and the 
meeting began. Daniel Haviland was minister and he spoke at length. Then, after 
a short pause, Richard Osborn and Roby Hoag arose, and clasping hands, spoke 
alternately the solemn sentences of the Friends' marriage ceremony, which have 
united them for sixty years. Then was brought forth the marriage certificate, 
fairly engrossed in the bridegroom's own hand, and many names of those present 
were affixed, after which it was read aloud. This being done, and kindly greet- 
ings offered, Richard and Roby Osborn drove back to their home. The wedding 
was well furnished with guests, and four fat turkeys graced the board that day." 
—"Richard Osborn, a Reminiscence," by Margaret B. Monahan. Quaker Hill 
Series. 



MORALS 45 

the public confessions demanded, the condemnation of specific 
and detailed offences read from the steps of the Meeting 
Houses, were all as far from present day approval as the 
offences themselves from modern experience. The writer is 
sure that, comparing the records of the Quaker Community 
with his own knowledge of the annals of the Mixed Com- 
munity, there were more offences of this kind considered 
by the Monthly Meeting of Oblong in any one year, 1728 — 
1828, than were publicly known in a population of the same 
extent in the ten years 1890 — 1900. The commonest of these 
offences were simple cases of illicit relations between un- 
married persons, or between persons, one of whom was mar- 
ried ; the offence often being associated in the minds of the 
accusers with ''going to froUicks." In these, as in all cases, 
the Meeting received the complaint and appointed a committee 
to investigate and to labor with the accused. On receiving its 
report, if guilt was evidenced, the Meeting pressed the matter, 
often increasing the size of the committee. It always 
demanded an expression of repentance, and the restor- 
ation of right conduct, without which no satisfaction was to 
be had. If the accused persons, being found guilty, did not 
repent, they were in the end "disowned." The disownment 
by the Meeting was a serious penalty. It diminished a man's 
business opportunities, it shut the door of social life to him, 
and it effectually forbade his marriage within the Meeting. 

Its power is shown in a number of cases recorded in the 
minutes, in which the ban of the Meeting had been laid upon 
some one, who was compelled later to come to the Meeting, 
make a tardy acknowledgement, and be restored, before he 
could proceed freely in some of the communal activities con- 
trolled by the Meeting. Often the committee appointed by 
the Meeting reported that they were not satisfied wdth the 
lepentance offered, seeing in it evidently more of policy than 
penitence. Usually they received, in later visitations of the 



46 QUAKER HILL 

accused, sufficient tokens of submission, and the Meeting was 
satisfied ; but not always. 

The most curious instance of the working out of this con- 
trol exercised by the Meeting, especially over the sexual rela- 
tions, is in the marriage of Joseph with Elizabeth . 

The first act in the little drama was the formal written state- 
ment of Joseph that he was sorry for "having been familiar 
with his wife before his marriage to her." The Monthly 
Meeting appointed a committee, as usual, after making record 
of this "acknowledgment." After a month the committee re- 
ported that they had visited Joseph, and found his repentance 
sincere; and another committee was appointed to draw up a 
testimony against his former misconduct, to which Joseph was 
required to subscribe ; and in a later month to hear it read 
from the steps of the Preparative Meeting in the neighborhood 
where he lived — or perhaps in that in which the offence was 
best known. After this had all been done, with patient detail, 
and reported and recorded, a further month elapsed, and then 
announcement was made at the Meeting of the intention ot 
Joseph and Elizabeth to marry. The reader is astonished, think- 
ing that Joseph has already evidenced his loyalty to his wife. 
A closer re-reading of the stages of the incident shows 
that the wife mentioned in the original offence was now dead ; 
but that the offence was not dead. Joseph had to be restored 
to the Meeting before he could marry Elizabeth, who was very 
evidently a devoted member. To win his new wife, he had to 
make acknowledgment of the offence which preceded his 
former marriage. 

This incident illustrates the whole attitude of that com- 
munity toward these moralities. They were thought to be 
defilements of the body, the temple of God. No change of 
outward condition could eliminate the offence, which must be 
wiped out by repentance, public acknowledgment and formal 
restoration. 



MORALS 47 

It is evident from the foregoing that the Meeting main- 
tained control over the community, at least of its own 
members, by possessing an effective power to approve or to 
disapprove of the economic and the marital condition of each 
individual. 

The code of morals practiced in this community required 
strict business honesty. The Quaker has moral discretion in 
economic affairs. He "expects to get what he pays for, and 
he expects to give what he has agreed." The honesty of 
"stroke-measure," by which bushels are topped off, the faith- 
ful performance of contracts and payment of debts were incul- 
cated by the Meeting and enforced by its discipline. 

This chapter may fitly close with a statement of the ana- 
thema of Quakerism, pronounced many times in a year, during 
the century. The offence selected shall be a moral one : 

"Whereas, Jonathan Osgood hath had a right of mem- 
bership among us, the people called Quakers, but not taking 
heed to the dictates of truth, hath so far deviated from the 
good order established among Friends as to neglect attend- 
ance of our religious meetings for worship and discipline, to 
deviate from the plain scripture language, and to refuse to 
settle with his creditors, and pay his just debts; and hath shut 
himself up concealed from the civil authorities, therefore for 
the clearing of truth and our Religious Society we do testify 
against his misconduct, and disown him, the said Jonathan 
Osgood, from being any longer a member of our Society, until 
he shall from a true sight and sense of his misconduct con- 
demn the same to the satisfaction of the IMeeting. Which 
that he may is our desire for him. Signed, in and on behalf 
of Purchase Monthly Meeting this th day of the th 
month." 

The above wording except the name is taken from the 
minutes of Purchase Meeting ; and some of the offences men- 
tioned in a few pages of those minutes, for which men were 



48 QUAKER HILL 

disowned, or for acknowledgment pardoned and restored, are 
the following: "deviating from plainness of speech and ap- 
parel" — "not keeping to the plain scripture language ;" "going 
to FroUicks," "going to places of amusement," "attending a 
horserace;" "frequenting a tavern, being frequently intoxi- 
sated with strong liquor;" "placing his son out apprentice 
with one not of our Society ;" "leaving his habitation in a 
manner disagreeable to his friends ;" "to use profane language 
and carry a pistol, in an unbecoming manner;" "bearing 
arms ;" "to challenge a person to fight ;" "to marry with a 
first cousin ;" "to keep company with a young woman not oF 
our Society on account of marriage ;" "to be married by a 
magistrate ;" "to marry with one not of our Society before a 
hireling priest ;" "to join principles and practice with another 
society of people ;" "to be guilty of fornication ;" "to be un- 
chaste with her who is now my wife" (the person afterward 
married by the accused). Oblong minutes: "to have bought 
a negro slave," "to have bought a negro wench and to be 
familiar with her." 

It was the operation of this code of morals, and of its 
ecclesiastical checks and curbs, that made the Quaker Hill 
man and the Quaker Hill sentiment what they are. And hav- 
ing done its work this code at the last tended to weaken the 
Meeting, as it had strengthened the public conscience. In 
talking recently with a sweet old lady past eighty, I asked her, 
"Did you ever hear anyone disowned in meeting?" "No," 
she never had, and "doubted if there had been many." Later, 
her daughter said, "Why, Grandmother, you married out of 
meeting yourself !" Whereupon I asked again, "Well, what 
did they do with you then?" "Oh," she replied, not at all 
embarrassed, "they turned me out !" 

"But what was the outcome of it all?" asks James Wood, 
in the closing sentences of his monograph, "The Purchase 
Meeting." He continues : "As a church the Quakers here 



MORALS 49 

missed their great opportunity. As settlers came among them 
in increasing numbers, the Friends became soHcitious to pre- 
serve the strictest moral observance among their members. 
They withdrew from contact and association with the world 
about them and confined their religious influence and effort to 
themselves. The strictest watch was maintained over the de- 
portment of old and young. Members were dismissed for 
comparatively slight offences. Immigration further reduced 
their numbers. Hypercriticism produced disagreements among 
themselves. Finally, doctrinal differences arose which re- 
sulted in a disastrous separation into two bodies in 1828." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE TOLERATION OF HOSTILE FORCES. 

Quaker Hill has been always a place of peace. The earliest 
settlers came to make an asylum for the propagation of the 
principles of peace. I have spoken elsewhere of their con- 
sistent belief and practice of this principle. 

The community always acted promptly in response to 
the known injury of its members. The Quakers have a 
"Meeting of Sufferings," at which are related and recorded 
the persecutions from which they suffer. This community, 
which for one hundred years was Quaker, has always been 
prompt to act ''solidly and judiciously" in support of the in- 
jured. An illustration is the riot in opposition to Surgeon 
Fallon, who in January, 1779, was left here with convalescent 
soldiers in the Meeting House. It is very interesting as 
showing the length to which men will go in the interest of 
peace, even to the use of violence. It illustrates also the fact 
that kindness to the sick and wounded, simply because they 
are helpless and needy, is modern, a humanitarian not a dog- 
matic development. 

To superior power the Quakers of this place have always 
submitted. Their forefathers were loyalists in England, and 
they in America, till far into the Revolution. But see the 
resolutions passed in April, 1778: 

"The answering of the 14th Query Respecting the De- 
frauding of the King of his dues is omitted by reason of the 
Difficulty of the times therefore this meeting desires the 
Quarterly meeting to Consider whether it would not be well 
to omit the answering that part of the Query in futur until 
the way may appear more Clear." This action was taken by 



HOSTILE FORCES 5I 

the meeting five months before the coming of Washington to 
the Hill, immediately after the heroic winter of Valley Forge 
and just before the British retreated from Philadelphia. An 
official body which could speak of dues to the king at that 
time, after their country had been separated from him for 
three years, surely represented a community in which the great 
majority were Loyalists, and the disorderly and violent were 
Tories. 

But the non-resistant character of the neighborhood, perched 
between the Connecticut Yankees, who took ardent interest in 
the Revolution, and the aggressive settlements of Pawling, 
Fredericksburgh and Beekman, rendered the Hill at times an 
asylum, strange to say, of the most adventurous forces. When- 
ever in Colonial days an adventurer or soldier sought a peace- 
ful region in which to recruit his forces, he thought upon 
Quaker Hill ; and in four memorable instances used the Hill 
as a place of safe refuge. There no one would by force resist 
his enjoyment of a time for recruiting. 

The first instance of this is the so-called "Anti-Rent War," 
which in 1766 excited the inhabitants of Dutchess and Col- 
umbia Counties. Its sources were in the land grants made 
by the Crown, and in the independent character of the settlers 
in this state. The series of disturbances so caused continued 
until well into the years of the nineteenth century. They 
concern the local history only in one year, 1766. 

The Anti-Rent War of 1766 is a forgotten event. But in 
that time it aroused the Indians and the white settlers to 
revolt. Bodies of armed men assembled, British troopers 
marched from Poughkeepsie to Quaker Hill, to seize a leader 
of rebellion ; and at the time of his trial at Poughkeepsie in 
August, 1766, a company of regulars with three field-pieces 
was brought up from New York.* 

* "Dutchess County in Colonial Days," 1898, and "Dutchess County," 1899, 
papers read before the Dutchess County Society, in the City of New York, by Hon. 
Alfred T. Ackert. Also, "History of Dutchess County," by James H. Smith. 



52 QUAKER HILL 

The prime cause of this insurrection was the granting of 
the land in great areas at the beginning of the century to 
favored proprietors, so that the actual settlers could not be- 
come owners but only tenants. Fragments of such great 
estates remain in the hands of certain families till our time. 
The ownership of Hammersley Lake by the family of that 
name is an example. The exercise of authority by these mon- 
opolists of natural opportunities drove the actual tillers of the 
soil, who had given it its value, to desperation. I have shown 
that in 1740 no land owners were enrolled on Quaker Hill, and 
that the list of its most representative citizens in 1755 con- 
tained few landowners.'^' A further cause of this conflict may 
have been that, in the year of the settlement of the boundaries 
of the Oblong it was granted to one company by the British 
Crown, and to another by the Colony of New York. This 
brought the title of all the lands on the Oblong into dispute. 
Moreover, boundaries were carelessly indicated and loosely 
described, a pile of stones or a conspicuous tree serving for a 
landmark. All this worked great confusion, for the settle- 
ment of which in a crude community courts were ineffective. 

Finally the popular discontent broke out to the north in 
armed refusal of settlers to pay the rents exacted. The movement 
spread from Dutchess to Columbia County. Will' am Prender- 
gast, who is said to have lived in a house standing on the 
ground now part of the golf links in Pawling, was the leader 
of the insurgents in this county. He assembled a band on 
Quaker Hill so formidable that the grenadiers at Poughkeepsie 
waited for reinforcements of two hundred troopers and two 
field pieces from New York before proceeding against him. 
The sight of the red coats was enough. Prendergast sur- 
rendered. But so great was the local excitement that, to fore- 
stall an attempt to rescue, he was taken a prisoner to New 
York. In July he was brought back for trial ; and on the 

* See pp. 20 and zr. 



HOSTILE FORCES 53 

same boat with the King's counsel, judges, lawyers and pris- 
oner came a company of soldiers to put down the continued 
disturbance in Columbia County.* 

The trial occurred the first fortnight of August. Prender- 
gast was assisted in his defense by his wife, who made a 
strong impression on the jury, proving that her husband, be- 
fore the acts of which he was accused, was "esteemed a sober, 
honest and industrious farmer, much beloved by his neighbors, 
but stirred up to act as he did by one Munro, who is ab- 
sconded." So ardent was this woman advocate that the State's 
attorney forgot himself and moved that she be excluded from 
the court room. The motion was denied, and the mover of it 
emphatically rebuked. But there was not lacking proof of 
the fact of treason, and Prendergast was convicted and sen- 
tenced to be hanged in six weeks. Then this valiant woman's 
energy and perseverance rose to their highest. She set off 
for an audience with the Governor, Sir Henry Moore, Bart., 
and returned about the first of September wdth a reprieve. 
Just in time she arrived, for a company of fifty mounted men 
had ridden the whole length of the county to rescue her 
husband from the jail. She convinced them of the folly of 
such action as they proposed, and sent them home, while she 
turned to the task of obtaining a pardon from the King. 
Here, too, she was successful ; for, six months later, George 
HI, who required six years to be subdued by a Washington, 
released her husband. They arrived home amid great popular 
rejoicings. 

William Prendergast and Mehitabel Wing, whose descend- 
ants settled later about Chautauqua Lake, New York, were 
bound to the Quaker Community by ties of mairiage and of 
trade. William was not, so far as I can learn, a member of the 
Meeting; but Mehitabel was a daughter of Jedidiah Wing, 

* See "New York Mercury," July 28, 1766, August 18 and 25, 1766, September 
15, 1766. See also "Dutchess County," by Alfred T. Ackert, 1899, p. 5. 



54 QUAKER HILL 

whose family was devoted to the Society from 1744 until the 
"laying down" of the Meeting in 1885. William Prendergast 
was, however, a member of the community. His name heads 
an account in the ledgers of the Merritt store, in 1771 and 
1772, and his purchases indicate that he was a substantial 
farmer whose trading center was Quaker Hill.* Prendergast 
was an Irishman. 

Before the Revolution he with his family and possessions, 
a caravan of seventeen vehicles and thirty horses, emigrated 
westward, going as far south as Kentucky, then north through 
Ohio and New York. A part of the family company proceeded 
to Canada. His son James settled, with other Prendergasts, 
on Chautauqua Lake, and became the founder of Jamestown, 
where his family, now extinct there, has given the city a 
library. When William Prendergast and Mehitabel Wing, his 
resolute wife, died, is not known. None of that name is 
later found on or near Quaker Hill. 

The motive of their hegira appears to have been chagrin 
and a sense of humiliation at the sentence of death pronounced 
upon the head of the family. In the Prendergast Library at 
Jamestown is a book containing family histories, which came 
from the Prendergast private library. From this book two 
pages had been cleanly cut away. The Librarians set themselves 
to replace the lost material, and after patient efforts in many 
quarters, discovered another copy, and had typewritten pages 
made and pasted in. Upon the missing pages, thus replaced 
after the extinction of James Prendergast's family, was found 
the account of William Prendergast's sentence to be hanged. 
His descendants, had they lived longer, might have been more 
proud than ashamed of his rebellion against injustice. 

The Quakers, because they would passively tolerate an 
intrusion, were forced to harbor another rendezvous of tur- 
bulent men. It is said that Enoch Crosby, the famous spy 

* See Appendix B. 



HOSTILE FORCES 55 

of the Revolution, who is beUeved to have been Cooper's 
model for the hero of the novel, "The Spy," came to Quaker 
Hill during the Revolution, in pursuance of a plan he was 
at that time following, and got together a band of Tory volun- 
teers, who were planning to join the British army ; and de- 
livered them to the Continental authorities, as prisoners. In 
this he was assisted by Col. Moorehouse, who kept a tavern 
on a site in South Dover, opposite the brick house which now 
stands one-half mile south of the Methodist Church. 

I have spoken above of the sullen loyalty of the 
Quakers to the British Crown during the Revolution. It 
may have been in part owing to their loyalty that their neigh- 
borhood became more congenial for the Tories who during 
that period harried the country-side. The Quakers were 
Tories, and are so called in the letters of the period; but 
the word "Tories" remains in the speech of Quaker Hill as 
a name of opprobrium. It describes a species of guerillas 
who infested parts of New York and Connecticut. 

The "Tories" of the Revolutionary days furnish the sub- 
stance of the stories of violence that are told about the fire- 
side to Quaker Hill boys and girls. It is difficult, however, 
to persuade those who have heard these tales to relate them. 
Those who know them best are the very ones who cannot 
recall them in systematic or orderly form. I mention only 
one more of the free lances of the time. The chiefest of all 
bandit-leaders of those turbulent times was Waite Vaughn. 
It is related that this fellow was the head of a band of Tories, 
which means locally the same that the term "Cowboys" or 
"Skinners" means in the history of Westchester County. The 
latter were lawless bands who infested the regions in which 
the armies made civil life insecure, and subsisted by stealing 
cattle, plundering houses, robbing and often murdering citi- 
zens. "They seemed," says a writer, "like the savages to enjoy 
the sight of the sufferings they inflicted. Oftentimes they 



56 QUAKER HILL 

left their wretched victims from whom they had plundered 
their all, hung up by their arms, and sometimes by their 
thumbs, on barndoors, enduring the agony of wounds that had 
been inflicted to wrest from them their property. These miser- 
able beings were frequently relieved by the American patrol."* 
Waite Vaughn lived in Connecticut in the part of New Fair- 
field known as \^aughn's Neck. Under the house, recently 
demolished, in which "Dr. Vaughn," his brother, is said to 
have lived during the Revolution, was found rotted linen 
below the cellar floor. Behind the great heap of the chimney 
also was found a secret cellar, for years forgotten, in which, 
among other rubbish of no significance, are said to have been 
found counterfeit coins of the Revolutionary period and other 
evidences of outlaw practices in that time.f 

Vaughn used to ride at night with his troop to Quaker 
Hill, through Connecticut neighborhoods, which knew the 
sound of his passing. The Pepper family still relate the tra- 
dition of his riding up "Stony Hill," past the point where 
stands Coburn Meeting House, in the night, while they and 
their neighbors stayed discreetly indoors. This rendezvous 
was a place in the woods on Irish land, about half way between 
Sites 96 and 120, now known as "The Robber Rocks." Here 
the Vaughns are said to have concealed booty at times, and 
from this point they made forages upon farmhouses in the rich- 
est neighborhoods of this vicinity. Probably they spared the 
Quakers. I will speak later of the fact that Quakers have 
ways of their own for protecting themselves against intruders. 
Moreover, their men were not gone to the war. 

The record of these years, on the pages of the clerk's 
minute-book, are a disappointment. One searches in vain for 
even the slightest trace of the presence in the Meeting House 
of the troops. There is no record of the presence in the Meet- 

* Thacher's "Military Journal of the Revolution." 

t The narrative of Vaughn is gleaned from old residents, Almira Briggs Tread- 
well, Archibald Dodge, Jane Crane, and others. 



HOSTILE FORCES 57 

ing House of the "Tories" or guerillas of the Revolution ; and 
not a word about the makers of the rifle-ports in the gables 
of this building which the present writer discovered there, 
unless it be the unruffled and serene utterance, under date of 
8th Month, 9th, 1781, the very period at which the "Tories" 
must have been at their worst: "Samuel Hoag is appointed to 
take care of the Meeting House, and to keep the door locked 
and windows fastened, and to nail up the hole that goes up 
into the Garratt." The "Tories" robbed the store on Site 28. 
They had hidden for that purpose in the loft of the Meeting 
House and were discovered by some young Quakers who 
were skylarking in the Meeting House under pretense of clean- 
ing it. The story is that one of the young men, being dared — 
of course by a maiden — to open the trap-door into the garret, 
and look for the Tories, found them hiding there. The bandits, 
being discovered, tumbled down the hole from the garret, and 
compelled their discoverers to go with them to the store ; and 
proceeded at once to plunder it, relying no doubt on the non- 
resistant character of the people of the Hill. They stacked 
their arms at the door and went about their business in a 
thorough manner. But there was that in the blood of some 
Quakers there that could not contain itself within the bounds 
of non-resistance, and one of them, Benjamin Ferris, cried 
out, "Seize the rascals." In the scrimmage that resulted from 
the excitement of this remark, the leader of the Tories was 
recognized by the young lady who had by her challenge to 
the young man discovered them, and being taunted by her was 
so incensed that he stabbed her. It is only said in closing the 
story that the blood of both the fair and adventurous young 
Quakeress whose abounding spirit brought on all the trouble, 
and that of the leader of the "Tories," flows in the veins, 
of some who live on the Hill in the twentieth century. 

Samuel Towner, a relative of Vaughn, resident in the 
region of Fredericksburgh (now Patterson), returning from 



58 QUAKER HILL 

a trip, once found \'aughn at his home, and urged him at 
once to leave, as his property would be confiscated, if Vaughn's 
presence there were tolerated. 

Vaughn was once pursued by farmers near Little Rest, and 
was sighted and surrounded in a lonely road. He turned 
upon his pursuers coolly and said : "Now, gentlemen, you can 
arrest me, or kill me, but you must take the consequences ; 
for I will kill some of you." Daunted by his resolution, they 
stood motionless while he crossed a fence and a field, and dis- 
appeared among the trees of a wooded hill. 

Quaker Hill became known as Vaughn's rendezvous, and 
here he met his end, I think about 1781. His band had robbed 
the home of one of the Pearce family, then as now resident 
in the valley where Pawling village stands. The victim was 
hung up by his thumbs till life was almost extinct. The next 
day, Capt. Pearce, of the Revolutionary army, returned un- 
expectedly to his home, and set off with armed assistance for 
the Robber Rocks on Quaker Hill. Near that spot, in the 
fields east of Site 97, on the Wing lands, Vaughn and his men 
were resting, some picking huckleberries, and some playing 
cards on a flat stone. Pearce gave no warning, but opened 
fire at once. Vaughn fell mortally wounded. He was car- 
ried to John Toffey's residence, Site 53, where he soon died. 
He is buried under the trees outside the "Toffey Burying 
Ground," beside the brook, in the very heart of Quaker Hill, 
into which he had intruded because in that peaceful neighbor- 
hood he had for a time a safe asylum. With his death it is 
believed that his band dispersed, and their depredations ceased. 

A peaceful people like the Quakers must find means of 
their own to protect themselves against intruders. No one 
can live long on Quaker Hill without knowing that they have 
done so. One may brusquely intrude once, but he will be a 
violent man indeed, not to say a dull one, who continues to 
enjoy invading the preserves of the ''Friends." The fourth 



HOSTILE FORCES 59 

instance of a forcible invasion of the Hill was that of Wash- 
ington's army, which encamped in the vicinity in the fall of 
1778, the Headquarters being in John Kane's house, on a site 
now within the borders of Pawling Village. See on Map i, 
"HeadQrs." 

On his arrival, September 19, 1778, Washington,* with his 
bodyguard, was entertained for six days at the home of Reed 
Ferris, in the Oblong, Site 99,7 an honored guest, when 
he moved to the place designated as his Headquarters 
on his maps by Erskine. His letters written during his 
residence here are all dated from "Fredericksburgh," the name 
at that time of the western and older part of the town of 
Patterson. Washington's general officers were quartered in 
the homes of various residents of the neighborhood. One 
was so entertained by Thomas Taber, at the extreme north 
end of the Hill. It is natural to suppose that others were 
housed in nearer places. That Lafayette was entertained at 
the home of Russell, who lived at Site 25, now the Post-office, 
is reliably asserted. The brick house standing at that time 
was torn down by Richard Osborn, who erected the present 
house. That Washington, with other officers, was entertained 
at Reed Ferris's home is asserted by the descendants most 
interested, and is undoubtedly true. 

The Meeting House was appropriated by the army officers 
for a hospital, because it was the largest available building. 
The only official record, says Mr. L. S. Patrick, is that of 
Washington's order, Oct. 20th, "No more sick to be sent to 
the Hospital at Quaker Hill, without first inquiring of the 
Chief Surgeon there whether they can be received, as it is 
already full." Arguing from the date of Washington's order 
above, Oct. 20, and from that of Surgeon Fallon below, this 

• "Washington Headquarters at Fredricksburgh," by L. S. Patrick; Quaker 
Hill Series, 1907. 

t This matter is very fully treated in "Washington's Headquarters at Freder- 
icksburgh," by Lewis S. Patrick. Quaker Hill Conference Local History Series, 
XVL 1907. 



60 QUAKER HILL 

use of the building for a hospital continued three and perhaps 
five months. Meantime the Friends' Meetings were held in 
the barn at Site 21, then the residence of Paul Osborn. This 
barn had been the first Meeting House erected on the Hill 
in 1742. It was removed to Site 21 in 1769, when it was used 
as a barn till 1884, when it was removed by the present 
resident.'^ 

There is no mention, even by inference, in the records of 
Oblong Meeting that proves this occupation of their build- 
ing by soldiers. It was not voluntarily surrendered ; other 
records show that the use of the building was supported by 
force ; its surrender was grudging, not a matter to be recorded 
in the Meeting. It is characteristic of the Friends that they 
ignored it. 

This toleration of the Hospital was never sympathetic. A 
letter of great interest to the student of those times was written 
to the Governor of the State of New York, Hon. George 
Clinton,* by Dr. James Fallon, physician in charge of the sick 
which were left on Quaker Hill, in the Meeting House, after 
the departure of the Continental army. He could get no 
one to draw wood for his hospital in the dead of winter, till 
finally "old Mr. Russell, an excellent and open Whig, tho' a 
Quaker," hired him a wagon and ox team. He could buy no 
milk without paying in Contintental money, six for one. He 
declared that "Old Ferris, the Quaker, pulpiteer of this place, 
old Russell and his son, old Mr. Chace and his family, and 
Thomas Worth and his family, are the only Quakers on or 
about this Hill, the public stands indebted to." The two 
pioneers of the Hill, the preacher and the builder, were patriots 
as well. He denounces the rest as Tories all, the "Meriths," 
Akins, Wings, Kellys, Samuel Walker, the schoolmaster, and 
Samuel Downing, whom he declared a spurious Quaker and 

* See No. IH, Quaker Hill Series, pp. 12, 42, and No. VIII, pp. 16, 17. 
t Letters of Governor George Clinton," New York State Library. 



HOSTILE FORCES 6l 

agent of the enemy ; also the preacher, Lancaster, "the Widow 
Irish;" and many he called "half-Quakers," who were probably 
more zealous, and certainly more violent for Quaker and 
Tory principles than the Quakers themselves. 

The trouble culminated in Dr. Fallon's impressing the 
wagons of Wing Kelly and "the widow Irish," to take four- 
teen men to Danbury and Fishkill to save their lives. The 
former impress was not resisted ; but the soldiers who took 
the Irish team had to battle with a mob, headed by Abraham 
Wing and Benjamin Akin, who used the convalescent soldiers 
roughly, but could not prevent the seizure. They were not the 
first men to do violence for the sake of the principle of non- 
resistance. One can see, too, that modern Quakerism has 
taken a gentler tone. 

The small violence done by Abraham Wing and Benjamin 
Akin, like that of young Ferriss to prevent the robbery of the 
Merritt store, was ineffective. But the Quaker mode of self- 
protection was more effective than violence. They "froze 
out" the doctors and their soldiers from the Meeting House, by 
leaving them alone in the bitter winter, by letting them starve. 
The bitterness of their Toryism, and the zeal of Quaker ideals, 
the ardor of their "make-believe," carried them too far. They 
forgot mercy for the sake of opposing the cruelty of war. 

Among the soldiers who lay sick in the Meeting House 
many are said to have died. They were buried in the grounds 
of the resident on Site 32, in the easterly portion of the field 
facing the Meeting House. No stones mark their place of 
rest, as none were ever placed in the cemetery of the early 
Quakers in the western part of the same field. Over them 
both the horses of persons attending meeting were tethered 
for many decades. The ploughman and the mower for years 
traversed the ground. But it is not forgotten who were buried 
there. 

Says L. S. Patrick in his attempt to estimate the amount of 



62 QUAKER HILL 

sickness and death of soldiers on the hill that winter :* "Of the 
conditions existing, the prejudices prevailing, and the probable 
number in the Hospital, Dr. Fallon's letter to Governor Clinton 
furnishes the only account known to exist: 'Out of the lOO 
sick, Providence took but three of my people off since my 
arrival.' On the occasion of the arrival of Col. Palfrey, the 
Paymaster General, at Boston from Fredericksburgh, General 
Gates writes to General Sullivan : 'I am shocked at our poor 
fellows being still encamped, and falling sick by the hundreds.' 

"The death list — out of the oblivion of the past but four 
names have been found — John Morgan, Capt. James Greer's 
Co., died at Quaker Hill Hospital, Oct. 19, 1777 ( ?) ; Alex- 
ander Robert, Capt. George Calhoun's Co., 4th Pa., Nov. 6, 
1778; James Tryer, Capt. James Lang's Co., 5th Pa., Oct. 22, 
1778; Peter King, ist Pa., enlisted 1777, Quaker Hill Hospi- 
tal, N. J. (?) 1778 (no such hospital). 

"Some doubt may exist as to two of these, but as the hos- 
pital is named, an error may exist in copying the original 
record." 



* "Washington Headquarters at Fredricksburgh," by L- S. Patrick, 1907. 



PART II. 

The Transition. 

CHAPTER I. 

COMMUNICATION — THK ROADS. 

The roads were originally bridle paths, and to this day- 
many a stretch of road testifies in its steep grade to its use 
in the days of the pack saddle. No driver of a wheeled vehicle 
would have selected so abrupt a slope. 

In the early days the roads had a north and south direc- 
tion. In the Period of Transition, with the diversion of com- 
merce to the railroad in Pawling, the roads of an east and 
west direction became the principal roads, though the one 
great Quaker Hill highway north and south is still the avenue 
of communication on the Hill. 

As the years passed wagons were used ; indeed, by the time 
of the Revolution, in the second generation, they were bearing 
all the transportation. The state of the roads is shown, how- 
ever, by the fact that Daniel Merritt was accustomed to pay, 
in 1772, £1, or $5, for carting four barrels of beef to the river; 
that is, about 1,000 lbs. constituted a load. At the present 
state of the country roads, a Quaker Hill employer would ex- 
pect 2,000 lbs. to make a load. The state of the roads before 
the turnpikes were made, that is, before 1800 to 1825, is de- 
scribed by a resident as follows : "The road was so full of 
stones, large and small, that people of to-day would consider 
impassable for an empty wagon, to say nothing of drawing 
a load over it. In the fall of the year it is said that toward 
evening one could hear the hammering of the wheels of the 



64 QUAKER HILL 

wagons on the stones of the road a distance of four or five 
miles."* 

I cannot learn that Quaker Hill was during the Quaker 
Period on any main line of country travel. Marquis De Chas- 
telleux records in his "Travels in North America," that he 
journeyed in 1789 to Moorehouse's Tavern (see Map i) along 
the Ten Mile River, two or three miles from the Housatonic 
to "several handsome houses forming part of the district 
known as The Oblong. The inn I was going to is in the 
Oblong, but two miles farther on. It is kept by Col. Moore- 
house, for nothing is more common in America than to see 
an inn kept by a colonel . . . the most esteemed and most 
creditable citizen." There was no inn on Quaker Hill and no 
colonel. The Quaker aversion to military titles was then as 
great as to the sale of rum. The houses referred to by the 
French traveller were probably the northern boundary of the 
Quaker community, at what is now Webatuck. I cannot find 
record of any post road coming nearer than this, until in the 
19th century a stage was maintained between Poughkeepsie 
and New Milford, by way of Quaker Hill, making the journey 
every other day, and stopping at John Toffey's store at Site 53. 

The building of turnpikes became, in the years following 
1800, a popular form of public spirit. Says Miss Taber: "In 
fact, turnpikes seemed to be a fad in those days all over the 
state and probably a necessary one. The longest one I learn 
of in this part of the country was from Cold Spring on the 
Hudson River to New Milford in Connecticut. The turnpike 
in which the people of this neighborhood were most interested 
was the one incorporated April 3, 1818, and reads, 'That Albro 
Akin, John Merritt, Gideon Slocum, Job Crawford, Charles 
Hurd, William Taber, Joseph Arnold, Egbert Carey, Gabriel 
L. Vanderburgh, Newel Dodge, Jurs., and such other persons 
as shall associate for the purpose of making a good and suffi- 

* "Some Glimpses of the Past." by Alicia Hopkins Taber. 



THE ROADS 65 

cent turnpike road in Dutchess Co." It was named as the 
Pawhngs and Beekman Turnpike, being a portion of what 
is known as the Poughkeepsie road passing over the West 
Mountain, but we do not find that anything was done until 
after the act was revived in 1824, when Joseph C. Seeley, 
Benoni Pearce, Samuel Allen, Benjamin Barr and George W. 
Slocum were associated with them." 

The Pawlings and Beekman Turnpike maintained a toll- 
gate till 1905, when it was burned down; and the company, 
which had long discussed its discontinuance, then abandoned 
its private rights in that excellent stretch of road. The 
turnpike which crossed Quaker Hill ended at the Jephtha 
Sabm residence, known to the present generation as "the 
Garry Ferris place," Site 74. The roads of the neighborhood 
were the same in 1778-80 as at the present day, as will be seen 
from a comparison of Map i, made by Erskine for Washing- 
ton, and Map 2, which is a copy of the U. S. Survey; ex- 
cept the road from Mizzen-Top Hotel to Hammersley Lake, 
made after the hotel was erected. The comparison of maps 
shows also, to one who knows the use of these roads, that they 
have changed from a north and south use to an east and west 
use; the highway on the northward slope of the Hill in 
Dover, and on the southward slope in Patterson, being but 
little used to-day. The road from the Meeting House and 
cemetery westward, which was once much favored, is now 
scarcely ever used, and being neglected by the authorities, is 
little more than a stony gutter.. s^ 

The whole character of the neighborhood was changed by ' 

a revolution in transportation. Not turnpikes effected the 
change, but railroads. The early years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury were filled with expectation of new modes of travel. 
Robert Fulton was building his steamboat amid the deri- 
sion of his contemporaries, and to their amazement steaming 
up the Hudson against the tide. At first canals seemed to 



66 QUAKER HILI, 

country folk the solution of their problem. They occupied in the 
dawn of the 19th century the place which trolley cars occupy 
in the minds of promoters to-day. A canal was planned to 
run through the Harlem valley, where now Pawling stands, 
and Quaker Hill men were among the promoters of it, among 
them Daniel Akin and Johnathan Akin Taber. 

Presently, however, came the promotion of railroads, and 
many of the same men who had favored the canals, entered 
heartily into the new projects. The foundation of Albert 
Akin's fortune was made when, about 1830, he began to 
borrow money of his neighbors and invest in the rapidly grow- 
ing lines of steam-cars in New York State. There were those, 
however, who foresaw dire things from the new iron high- 
way, and old residents tell of "one man who said that whosoever 
farm that locomotive passed through would have to give up 
fatting cattle, as it would be impossible to keep a steer on the 
place." 

For many years the railroad came no nearer than Croton 
Falls. Richard Osborn used to tell the story of one resi- 
dent of the Hill who boasted that he could go to New York 
and return the same day. This he finally attempted and ac- 
complished by driving with a good pair of horses to Croton 
Falls in the morning, taking an early train to New York, re- 
turning in the evening, and driving home before night. This 
story, which is well authenticated, proves the good con- 
dition of some of the roads before 1849, ^^^ the drive to 
Croton Falls is about twenty miles. Among leading Quaker 
Hill residents who promoted railroads in the valley 
were Jonathan Akin, Daniel D. Akin, J. Akin Taber, John and 
Albert J. Akin. The two men who were most influential in 
completing the last link of the road — from the local view- 
point — were Albert Akin and Hon. John Ketcham, of Dover, 
both recently deceased. They supplied cash for the continua- 
tion of the road from Croton Falls to Dover Plains. To Mr. 



THi; ROADS 67 

Akin the promise was made that if he would supply a build- 
ing for a station the road would place an eating house at the 
point nearest Quaker Hill. There was then no such village 
or hamlet as Pawling, the locality being known as "Goose- 
town." Patterson was an old village, west of its present busi- 
ness center one mile, and was known as Fredericksburgh. 
Dover also was a place of distinction in the country-side. Mr. 
Akin, with several yoke of oxen, hauled a dwelling to the 
railroad track from the site on which Washington's Head- 
quarters stood in 1778; and thus was initiated the settlement 
of the village which is now among the most thriving on the 
road. 

At that time Quaker Hill was the most prosperous com- 
munity for many miles around. A description of its industries 
will be found elsewhere, in Chap. IV, Part I. The coming of the 
railroad changed the whole aspect of things. The demand for 
milk to be delivered by farmers at the railroad station every 
day, and sold the next day in New York, began at once. It 
soon became the most profitable occupation for the farmers 
and the most profitable freight for the railroad. Eleven years 
after the first train entered Pawling came the war, with in- 
flated prices. The farmer found that no use of his land paid 
him so much cash as the "making of milk," and thereafter the 
raising of flax ceased, grain was cultivated less and less, 
except as it was to be used in the feeding of cattle, and even 
the fatting of cattle soon had to yield to the lowered prices 
occasioned by the importation of beef from western grazing 
lands. The making of butter and cheese, with the increased 
cost of labor on the farms, was abandoned, that the milk 
might be sold in bulk to the city middleman. The time had not 
come, however, in which farmers or their laborers imported 
condensed milk, or use none. Quaker Hill farmers lived too 
generously and substantially for that; but they ceased, during 



68 QUAKER HILI/ 

the Civil War, when milk was bought "at the platform" for 
six cents a quart, to make butter or cheese. 

Thus the Harlem Railroad transformed Quaker Hill from 
a community of diversified farming, producing, manufactur- 
ing, selling, consuming, sufficient unto itself, into a locality 
of specialized farming. Its market had been Poughkeepsie, 
twenty-eight miles away, over high hills and indifferent roads. 
Its metropolis became New York City, sixty-two miles away 
by rail and four to eight miles by wagon road. 

With the railroad's coming the isolated homogeneous com- 
munity scattered. The sons of the Quakers emigrated. Labor- 
ers from Ireland and other European lands, even negroes from 
Virginia, took their places. New Yorkers became residents 
on the Hill, which became the farthest terminus of suburban 
traffic. The railroad granted commuters' rates to Pawling, 
and twice as many trains as to any station further out. The 
population of the Hill became diversified, while industries 
became simplified. In the first century the people were one, 
the industries many. In the Period of the Mixed Community, in 
the second century, the people were many and the industries 
but one. I speak elsewhere of these elements of the mixed 
community. Suffice it to have traced here the simplifying of 
the economic life of the Hill, by the influence of the railroad, 
which made the neighborhood only one factor in a vaster 
industrial community, of which New York was the center. 
When the Meeting House and the Mcrritt store were for a 
century the centers of a homogeneous Quaker community, it 
was a solid unit, of one type, doing varied things ; when Wall 
Street and Broadway became the social and industrial centers, 
a varied people, no less unified, did but one thing. 



CHAPTER II. 

ECONOMIC CHANGES. 

The transition from the mixed or diversified farming of 
the Quaker community to the special and particular farming 
of the mixed community is written in the growth of the dairy 
industry, which in the year 1900 was the one industry of the 
Hill. In 1800 dairy products were only beginning to emerge 
from a place in the list of products of the Quaker Hill lands 
to a single and special place as the only product of salable 
value. While the Hill people constituted a community de- 
pendent on itself and sufficient unto itself, the exceptional 
fitness of the "heavy clay soil" to the production of milk, 
butter and cheese did not assert itself, and wheat, rye, flax, 
apples, potatoes were raised in large quantities and sold; but 
in the period of opening communication with the world 
in general, exactly in proportion as the Hill shared in the 
growth of commerce, by so much did the dairy activities sup- 
plant all other occupations. The order of this emergence is 
a significant commentary upon the opening of roads and the 
development of transportation. The stages are: first, cheese 
and butter; second, fat cattle; and third, milk. At the end of 
the Quaker community, when the best roads were of the east 
and west directions, and Poughkeepsie was the market-place, 
cheese and butter were made for a "money crop," by the 
women, who retained the money for their own use. 

There is a story told in the Taber and Shove families, 
which prettily shows the customs in the Quaker century. 
Anne Taber, wife of Thomas Taber, substantial pioneer at 
the north end of the Hill, "had a fine reputation as a cheese 
maker." Being a New England woman, she was of the few 
who in Revolutionary days were in sympathy with the Col- 



yO QUAKER HILIv 

onies, and she gave forth that she would present a cheese to 
the first general officer who should visit the neighborhood. 
"One day, being summoned to the door," writes one of her 
descendants, "she was greatly surprised to find a servant of 
General Washington, with a note from him claiming, under 
conditions of the promise, the cheese. Of course it was sent, 
and the General had opportunity to test her skill in that do- 
mestic art."* 

The Taber family did not preserve that note; but in the 
Treasury Department of the United States, among Washing- 
ton's memoranda of expenditures, is the item under date of 
Nov. 6, 1778, "To Cash paid servant for bringing cheese from 
Mr. Taber, 16 shillings." It would seem that the fame of 
Anne Taber 's cheeses had won her a market with the officers 
at Headquarters, for sixteen shillings was payment "for bring- 
ing cheese" in large quantity, and the date is six weeks after 
the arrival of Washington for his stay in the vicinity. 

In the ledger of the Merritt store, under date of Nov. 6, 
1772, Thomas Taber, Esq., is credited as follows: "By 29 
cheses wd. 484 lb. at 6d., £12 2s." In that year Thomas Taber, 
Esq., satisfied his account with an ox, £6 i6s. ; cash, £10; three 
pounds and nine ounces of old pewter, 4s. 6d. ; seven hogs, 
£20 IIS. 6d., and the above 29 cheeses. So that approximately 
one-fourth of the "money crop" of this substantial farmer was 
in the form of a dairy product. In the year 1895, the average 
Quaker Hill farm was producing, as will be shown in Chapter 
III, Part III, ninety per cent, of dairy product, namely milk. 

The second phase of the industry proper to Quaker Hill 
was that of raising fat cattle. This culminated at the end of the 
period of the Quaker Community. In this industry were laid 
the foundations of some large fortunes. It brought in its day 



• "Thomas Taber and Edward Shove — a Reminiscence," by Rev. Benjamin 
Shove; Quaker Hill Series, 1903. 



ECONOMIC CHANGES 7I 

more money into the neighborhood than any other occupation 
had ever brought. It disappeared with the coming of the rail- 
road into the valley, bringing, in refregerator cars, meat from 
western lands, and killed in Chicago. Then the cattle were 
fattened on these hills, in the rich grass, and driven to New 
York to be killed and sold there. 

In "Some Glimpses of the Past," Miss Taber says : "But 
the chief business of most farmers was the fatting of cattle. 
The cattle were generally bought when from two to three 
years old, usually in the fall, kept through the winter and the 
following summer fattened and sold. They were the only 
things that did not have to go to the river to reach the mar- 
ket. From all over the country they were driven to New York 
on foot, and the road through the valley was the main thor- 
oughfare for them. Monday was the market day in New 
York and all started in time to reach the city by Saturday. 
From Pawling the cattle were started on Thursday, and those 
from greater distances planned to reach this part of their 
journey on that day. It used to be said that the dealers could 
tell what the market would be in New York on the following 
Monday by watching the cattle that passed through Pawling 
on Thursday. The cattle were collected and taken to the city 
by drovers ; theirs was a great business in those days. Hotels 
or taverns were provided for their accommodation at frequent 
intervals along the road. Ira Griffin was a drover and Mr. 
Archibald Dodge remembers when a boy going to New York 
with him and his cattle, walking all the way. There were also 
droves of cattle other than fat ones, on the road, some called 
store cattle, and the books of Mr. Benjamin V. Haviland, who 
kept one of the taverns, show that in the year 1847 there had 
been kept on his place 27,784 cattle, 30,000 sheep and 700 
mules, and it is said that occasionally there would be 2,000 
head between his tavern and that of John Preston's in Dover. 
When Mr. Albert J. Akin was a young man he was consid- 



^2 QUAKER HILIv 

ered an expert judge and buyer of steers for fattening, and 
generally had the finest herd of fat cattle." 

This reference is to the business at its height and applies 
to the years 1800- 1850. In the books of John Toflfey's store 
are frequent references to the business. 

Interesting material is furnished for the study of the period 
of transition, in the records of the store kept by John Toflfey 
at Site No. 53. These old day-books and ledgers are incom- 
plete, but they cover spaces of time in the years 1814, 1824, 
1833 ; and their account of the purchases made by John 
Toflfey's customers furnishes a record, we may suppose, of the 
goods brought into the households on the Hill at that time, 
from other communities ; as well as the actual exchange of 
commodities on the Hill, where at that time diversified indus- 
tries were carried on. 

The growth of trade in these respects, from the period 
1814-1816 to the period 1824-1833 will be considered in four 
lines, as it is exhibited in the commodities : first of Costume 
second of Food and Medicine, and third of Tools and 
Material for Industry, fourth, of House-furnishings. It is 
assumed that John Toflfey kept a representative store, and 
that the growth in his trade corresponded to the growth in 
the commercial interchange in the community. 

In 1814-1816 the imported goods kept and sold by John 
Toflfey are cloth (perhaps in part locally manufactured), in- 
digo, thread, cambric, penknives, knitting needles, spelled 
"nittenneedels," plaster, fine salt, molasses, tea, apple-trees, 
nutmeg, shad and occasionally other fish. The list is brief, 
and its proportion to the other commodities sold in the store 
evidences the simplicity of a community dependent chiefly upon 
itself, and living a life of rudeness and content. 

Among prices which change in the twenty years recorded in 
John Toflfey's books are those of molasses which was in 1814- 
1816 $2.00 per gallon, and fell to $1.25 and in 1824 to 35c. per 



ECONOMIC CHANGES 73 

gallon. "Tobago" was sold in 1814 at $2.75 per pound, and 
later for 62c. Flour was sold in 1814 for $18 per barrel, or 9c. 
per pound ; wool hats at $4 ; fine salt loc. per pound ; plaster 
$3.25 per hundredweight; boots at $9.00; tea at $2.75 per 
pound. 

A day's work for a man in 181 4-1 816 was from $1.00 per 
day for ordinary work, to $1.25 for driving oxen, or $1.50 
for "digging a grave," or the same amount "tor going after 
the thief." 

House-rent is recorded at the rate of thirty dollars a year. 

One may explain the high rates of many of these com- 
modities, and the relatively high rate paid for labor by the 
prevalence of war prices at the time. Commodities such as 
molasses would be expensive as a result of the stoppage of 
sea-trade; and the labor market was exhausted to supply the 
army with soldiers. 

In 1824 Toffey imported, for Costuming, shawls, crepe at 
$1 per yard, silk, skein-silk, twist, ribbon, velvet at 90c. per 
yard, drab-cloth, flannel, braid, handkerchiefs, buttons and 
button-moulds, gloves, suspenders, calico, vest patterns, pins, 
chrome-yellow, "bearskin" at 82c. per yard, dress handker- 
chiefs, beads, buckles, silk flags and morocco skins. 

Of new foods he imported molasses at 35c. per gallon^ 
oranges at 2c. each, which he seems to have sold only one by 
one, sugar at 6c., tobacco at 12c., alum, tea at 85c., salt at $1 
per bushel, pepper, all-spice, raisins, salt-peter, pearlash, cas- 
tile soap, hard soap, paregoric, ginger, logwood, vitriol, cin- 
namon, snufif, sulphur, cloves, mustard, opium, coflfee, loaf 
sugar, watermelons, and seeds for beets, lettuce, parsnips. 

Of House-furnishings, he had for sale, knives, forks — one 
set of knives and forks selling for $13, plates, bowls, pitchers, 
mugs, teacups, teapots, decanters, almanacs, brooms, oilcloth, 
glass and putty, inkstands, bedsteads, spoons in sets, sugar- 
bowls, tin pans. 



74 QUAKER HILI. 

Of Tools and Materials for Industry he sold nails by the 
"paper," by the hundred and by the pound, files, oil at 750. a 
gallon, locks, slates, paper, pocket-books, pencils, turpentine, 
raw steel and iron, spectacles at 34c., sandpaper, shovels and 
spades, screws, gimlets. 

Rum, brandy and gin appear also, with powder, shot and 
fishhooks, as tributes to the convivial and adventurous spirit. 
But the convivial spirits were the better patrons, for there 
was scarcely an entry in certain years in which was not an 
item of alcoholic spirits. The sporting goods were only occa- 
sionally purchased. 

In 1833 for Costuming, cotton-batting had appeared, and 
canton flannel, canvas, blue jeans at 83c. per yard, brown 
Holland, cloth at $3.64 per yard, hats at 44c. each, hooks and 
eyes, pearl buttons at loc. a dozen, side combs, bandanna 
handkerchiefs; while sole-leather was still sold in quantity, 
with buckskin mittens, which were scarcely made on the Hill. 

For Industry, behold the arrival of pincers, gum arabic, 
"Pittsburgh cord" at 21c. per yard. In Housings, candles, 
frying pans, tin pails, dippers, tin basins, wash-tubs made their 
appearance; and in this year for the first time window-blinds 
were sold, for 75c. 

For Food and Medicines John Toflfey offered at this time 
codfish, coffee, souchong tea, crackers, castor oil, camphor 
gum, Epsom salts. 

Meantime, a day's wages had fallen from $1 and $1.50 to 
65c. and 75c. per day. 

The growth of trade in John Toffey's store is summarized 
in Table I. In this table may be seen also the growth of econ- 
omic demand. The increase of the number of kinds of com- 
modities in each evidences the acquirement of varid tastes by 
this people of the Hill. 



ECONOMIC CHANGE 

Table I. John Toffey's Store. 



75 



Commodities . 


1814-16 


1824 


1833 


Costume 


5 


25 


38 


Food and Medicine 


5 


29 


36 


Tools and Materials 


5 


18 


21 


House Furnishings . 




18 


24 


Daily Wage . 


i;i.-;^i.50 




65c. - 75c. 



The above summary of the importations to the Hill in the 
years 1814-1833 casts light upon the social and religious his- 
tory of the period in question ; in which occurred the greatest 
social convulsion this community has ever known. In the 
year 1828 the Religious Society of the Friends was divided, 
never to be united, the integrity of the community as a social 
and religious unit was ended, the ties of a century were 
severed, and instead of the "unity" of which Quakers are 
always so conscious, came mutual criticism, recrimination, 
and excommunication of one-half of the community by the 
majority of the Meeting. Thus ended the communal life of 
Quaker Hill, and began the disintegration of the community 
which is now almost complete. 

It is true that this schism was general throughout the de- 
nomination, in all the United States; and that it was shared 
in its doctrinal influences by the Congregational churches, the 
Unitarian Association having been formed in Boston in 1825. 
But nevertheless it had roots on Quaker Hill in an economic 
condition; and that economic condition may have been gen- 
eral throughout the Eastern States 



76 QUAKER HII,!, 

Let the doctrinal causes of this schism be considered else- 
where.* Economic causes are hinted at in the above para- 
graphs. There came in many embellishments of life which 
must have seemed to early Friends mere luxuries, and to the 
stricter few must have appeared instruments of sm, as "beads," 
"ribbons," velvet, silk, braid, crepe, shawls, dress handker- 
chiefs, buckles, silk flags, pearl buttons — these are expressions 
of new states of mind. The economic change underlying the 
social convulsion is seen in the increase of varied stuffs for 
costume, articles and materials for the food and medicine 
cupboards of the farmhouses, and in more varied tools and 
materials both for industry and house furnishing. 

Even more influential than the exciting power of luxuries 
would be the quieter and more pervasive stimulus of comfort. 
Houses that are glazed and ceiled and furnished with well 
adapted implements in every room ; tables set with all the wares 
of leisurely and pleasurable feeding speak a new state of 
affairs. The people so clothed and so fed begin to produce in 
every family some members of cultured tastes, some of 
independent thought, who are restive under the denials of 
Quakerism. 

Business and industry too become more varied ; and the 
effect of this prosperous and varied industry shows itself in 
active and critical minds. Importation from places beyond 
Poughkeepsie awakened imagination and invited reflection 
upon the state of the world. 

All this time the daily wage continued to fall, from $i and 
$1.50 in 1814 to 50c., 65c and 75c. in 1833. It is said that 
men bitterly commented, in those days of the rapid develop- 
ment of the country, that a farmer who paid a laborer fifty 
cents for a day's labor in the hay-field from daybreak to dark, 
would pay the same amount, fifty cents, for his supper on the 
Hudson River boat, when he made his annual visit to the 
great city of New York. 

• The matter is fully treated in "Quaker Hill in the Nineteenth Century," by^ 
Rev. Warren H. Wilson; Quaker Hill Series of Local History No IV. 



ECONOMIC CHANGE yj 

We have, then, in John Toffey's daybook a reflection of 
conditions which had to do with the break-up of the com- 
munity, as truly as did the theological difference between 
Elias Hicks and the Orthodox. Comfortable living, diversi- 
fied and intensified industry, importation of expensive and 
stimulating comforts, leisure with its sources in wealth, and 
its tendencies toward reflection, and especially a differentiation 
of the homogeneous community into diverse classes, owing to 
lowered wages and multiplied embellishments of life, made up 
altogether the raw materials of discontent, criticism and 
division. 

These factors go with a state of growing discontent and 
disintegration. The men and women possessed of leisure cul- 
tivated a humanist state of mind, with which arose a critical 
spirit, a nicer taste and a cultured discrimination. They were 
offended by literalism, bored by crudeness however much in 
earnest, and disgusted with the illogical assertions of pietists. 
The imperative mandate of the meeting awakened in them 
only opposition. They found many to sympathize with their 
state of mind. 

On the other side there were those who seriously feared 
the incoming of luxurious ways. They distrusted books, re- 
membering the values of one Book to the laborer who reads 
it alone ; they believed in plainness, and their minds associated 
freedom of dress with freedom of thought. They resented 
also the new privileges conferred on some by wealth, because 
to most had come only harder work with discontent. 

The schism which rent the community was an economic 
heresy, the belief in the use of money for embellishment of 
life. All the Quakers regarded with favor the making of 
money. The Liberals, however, saw ends beyond money, and 
processes of ultimate value beyond administration and busi- 
ness. They looked for household comforts, books, travel, and 
the leisure with great souls who have written and have ex- 



78 QUAKER HII,I, 

pressed the greatest truths. They beUeved in a divinity such 
as could have made, and regarded with favor, the whole 
teeming world. 

The Orthodox saw the values of prosperity only in plain- 
ness of life, recognized no divinity in humanized manners, and 
sternly but ineffectually called the community back to ideal- 
ized commonplaceness, and to hear the utterances of rude 
ploughmen and cobblers in the name of Deity. 

One ventures to believe, too, that there was a falling away 
from all religious exercises at this time, and that the pious 
of both schools were troubled about it, and accused one an- 
other. The poor were too hard worked and too poorly paid 
to feel anything but discontent; and the leaders of the com- 
munity differed as to the solution of the religious problem. 
Hence came division. 

The Quakers are conscious of religious "unity," but their 
mode of life is a true economic unity. The Quaker Com- 
munity was re-arranging itself economically, but the members 
felt a religious change. Class division was coming upon them, 
and they felt it as a sectarian division. It was indeed the end 
of the old community ruled by religion, and the formation of 
a new neighborhood life ; a new Quakerism, ruled by economic 
classes: the persons of influence being invariably persons of 
means, and the dominating leaders rich. Doubtless the 
Quakers who led in the Division of 1828 hoped, in each party 
equally, to maintain the old religious domination. The com- 
munity has never granted that leadership to the divided Meet- 
ing, neither to the Orthodox, nor to the Hicksites. The real 
power has, since a period antedating the division, been in the 
hands of those who have owned farms centrally located ; who 
in addition to owning land centrally located have been possessed 
of large means: the "rich men" and "wealthy women" have 
possessed a monopoly of actual leadership. If also, they have 
been religiously inclined, their leadership has been absolute. 



CHAPTER III. 

REI^IGIOUS LiFe IN TRANSITION. 

In religion the solidarity of this country place has been 
best shown in the fact that, during most of its history, it has 
had but one church at a time. For one hundred years there 
was the undivided meeting. From 1828 to 1885 the Hicksite — 
Unitarian, branch of the Friends held the Old Meeting House, 
with diminishing numbers. The Orthodox had their smaller 
meeting house around the corner, attended by decreasing gath- 
erings. In 1880 was organized Akin Hall, in which till 1892 
were held religious services in the summer only. Since that 
time religious services have been held there all the year round. 
The early united meeting had a membership of probably two 
hundred, and audiences of three hundred were not uncommon. 

The church in Akin Hall, named "Christ's Church, 
Quaker Hill," had in 1898 a membership of sixty-five, and 
audiences of fifty to two hundred and fifty, according to the 
occasion and the time of year. In the past the general attitude 
of the community toward religion has been reverent and sym- 
pathetic. It is no less so to-day. 

Of religious ceremonies the Quakers claim to have none. 
But they are fond of ceremoniousness beyond most men. The 
very processes by which they abolish forms are made formal 
processes. They have ceremonies the intent of which is to 
free them from ceremony. The meeting is called to order by 
acts ever so simple, and dismissed by two old persons shaking 
hands ; but these are invariable and formal as a doxology and 
a benediction. They receive a stranger in their own way. A 
visiting minister is honored with fixed propriety. An expelled 
member is read out of meeting with stated excommunicatory 
maledictions. 



80 QUAKER HII^L 

Worship has had on Quaker Hill a large place in charac- 
terizing the social complexion of the people. By this, I mean 
that the peculiarities of the Quaker worship, now a thing of 
the past, have engraved themselves upon character. Those 
peculiarities are four: the custom of silence; the non-employ- 
ment of music, or conspicuous color or form; the separate 
place provided for women; the assertion and practice of 
individualism. 

The silence of the Quaker meeting is far from negative. 
It is not a mere absence of words. It is a discipline enforced 
upon the lower elements of human nature, and a reserve upon 
the intellectual elements, in order that God may speak. I 
think that in this silence of the meeting we discover the work- 
ing of the force that has moulded individual character on 
Quaker Hill and organized the social life. For this silence is 
a vivid experience, "a silence that may be felt." The presence 
and influence of men are upon one, even if that of God be not. 
The motionless figures about one subtly penetrate one's con- 
sciousness, though not through the senses. They testify to 
their belief in God when they do not speak better than they 
could with rhetoric or eloquence. It is the influence of many, 
not of one; yet of certain leaders who are the organs of this 
impression, and of the human entity made of many who in 
communion become one. The self-control of it breathes power, 
and principle, and courage. One would expect a Quaker meet- 
ing to exert an imperious rule upon the community. It is an 
expression of the majesty of an ideal. I believe that the 
Quaker Hill meeting has been able to accomplish whatever 
it has put its hand to do. The only pity is that the meeting 
tried to do so little. 

The original religious influence of Quakerism, carried 
through all changes and transformation, was a pure and relent- 
less individualism. It was the doctrine that the Spirit of God 
is in every heart of man, absolutely every one ; resisted indeed 



RELIGION IN TRANSITION 8l 

by some, but given to each and all. With honest consistency 
it must be said, the Quakers applied this — and this it was they 
did apply — to the status of women, to the question of slavery, 
to the civic relations of men. This it was that made Fox and 
Penn refuse to doff their hats before judge, or titled lord, or 
the king himself. 

The character of the common mind of the community has 
been much influenced by the fact that the Quakers made no 
use of color, form and music either in worship or in private 
life; that they also idealized the absence of these. They 
made it a matter of noble devotion. In nothing do local tra- 
ditions abound more than in stories of the stem repression of 
the aesthetic instincts. One ancient Quakeress, coming to the 
well-set table at a wedding, in the old days, beheld there a 
bunch of flowers of gay colors, and would not sit down until 
they were removed. Nor could the feast go on until the 
change was effected. So great was the power of authority, 
working in the grooves of "making believe," that those who 
might have tolerated the bouquet in silence, as well as those 
who had sensations of pleasure in it, supported her opposition. 

I have spoken elsewhere of the effect of this century-long 
repression and ignoring of the aesthetic movements of the 
human spirit, in banking the fires of literary culture in this 
population. The present generation, all inheriting the ex- 
amples of ancestors ruled in such unflinching rigor, has in 
none of its social grouping any true sense of color or of the 
beauty of color. Neither in the garments of those who have 
laid off the Quaker garb, nor in the decorations of the houses 
is there a lively sense of the beauty of color. None of the 
women of Quaker extraction has a sense of color in dress; 
nor can any of them match or harmonize colors. I except, 
of course, those whose clothing is directly under the control 
of the city tailor or milliner. The general effect of costume 
and of the decorations of a room, in the population who get 



82 QUAKER HILL, 

their living on the Hill, is that of gray tones, and drab effects ; 
not mere severity is the effect, but poverty and want of color. 

In forms of beauty they know and feel little more. I do 
not refer to the lack of appreciation of the elevations and slopes 
of this Hill itself — a constant delight to the artistic eye. Farm- 
ers and laborers might fail to appreciate a scene known to 
them since childhood. But there is in the Quaker breeding, 
which gives on certain sides of character so true and fine a 
culture a conspicuous lack in this one particular. 

As to music, even that of simplest melody, it has come to 
the Hill, but it "knows not Joseph." An elderly son of Quak- 
erism said : "You will find no Quaker or son of the Quakers 
who can sing ; if you do find one who can sing a little, it will 
be a limited talent, and you will unfailingly discover that he 
is partly descended from the world's people." 

The effect of this aesthetic negation appears, it seems to the 
present writer, in a certain rudeness or more precisely a cer- 
tain lack in the domain of manners, outside of the interests in 
which Quakerism has given so fine a culture. This appears to 
be keenly felt by the descendants of Friends. Not in business 
matters; for they are made directors of savings banks and 
corporations, and trustees, and referees, and executors of es- 
tates, in all which places they find themselves at home. Nor 
is it a lack of dignity and composure in the parlor or at the 
table. Nor is it a lack of sense of propriety in meetings of 
worship. But it is in matters ethical, civic and deliberate, and 
in the free and discursive meetings of men, in which new 
and intricate questions are to arise; in positions of trust, in 
which the highest considerations of social responsibility con- 
stitute the trust ; in these, the men and women trained in Quak- 
erism are lacking throughout whole areas of the mind, and 
lacking, too, in ethical standards, which can only appeal to 
those whose experience has fed on a rich diversity of sources 
and distinctions. 



RELIGION IN TRANSITION 83 

In this I speak only of the Quaker group and of those who 
have been under its full influence. It does not apply to the 
Irish Catholics, nor to the incomers from the city. The Quakers 
and their children lack precisely those elements of aesthetic 
breeding which would be legitimately derived from contempla- 
tion and enjoyment of beauty aside from ethical values. Ethical 
beauty, divorced from pure beauty, a stern, bare, grim beauty 
they have, and their children and employees have. But they 
have little sense of order in matters that do not proceed to the 
ends of money-making, house-keeping and worship. They 
do not seem to possess instinctive fertility of moral resource. 
It may be due to other sources as well, but it seems to the 
present writer that the moral density shown by some of these 
birthright Quakers, upon matters outside of their wonted and 
trodden ethical territories, is due to their long refusal to recog- 
nize aesthetic values, and to see discriminations in the field in 
which ethics and aesthetics are interwoven. 

They made red and purple to be morally wrong, idealizing 
the plainness of their uncultured ancestry, and sweet sounds 
they excluded from their ears, declaring them to be evil noises, 
because they would set up the boorishness of simple folic of 
old time as something noble and exalted, "making believe" 
that such aesthetic lack was real self-denial and unworldliness. 
It is not surprising that in a riper age of the world, after life- 
times of this idealization of peasant states of mind, their chil- 
dren find themselves morally and mentally unprepared for the 
responsibilities of citizenship, of high ethical trust and of the 
varied ways of a moral world, whose existence their fathers 
made believe to ignore and deny. 

Women have always occupied in Quakerism a place theor- 
etically equal to that of the men, in business and religious 
affairs. George Fox and his successors declared men and 
women equal, inasmuch as the Divine Spirit is in every human 
soul. 



84 QUAKER HILL 

After the influence of the early Friends ceased, the place of 
woman began to be circumscribed by new rules, and crystal- 
lized in a reaction under the influence of purely social forces; 
so that this most sensible people made women equal to men 
in meetings and in religious legislation through a form of 
sexual taboo. 

Following the custom of many early EngHsh meeting 
houses, the men and women sat apart, the men on one side of 
the middle aisle, and the women on the other, so that men and 
women were not equals in the individualist sense, as they are 
for instance, in the practice and theory of Socialism, but were 
equals in separate group-life ; to each sex, grouped apart from 
the other, equal functions were supposed to be delegated. 
Oblong Meeting House, on Quaker Hill, had seats for two 
hundred and fifty people on the ground floor, and in the gal- 
lery for one hundred and fifty more. The men's side was sep- 
arated from the women's, of equal size and extent, by wooden 
curtains, which could be raised or lowered ; so that the whole 
building could be one auditorium, with galleries ; or the cur- 
tains could be so lowered that no man on the ground floor 
could see any woman unless she be a speaker on the "facing 
seats" ; nor could any young person in the gallery see any one 
of the opposite sex ; yet a speaker could be heard in all parts. 
The curtains could be so fixed, also, that two independent 
meetings could be held, each in a separate auditorium, even 
the speakers being separated from one another. 

It was the custom for women to have delegated to them 
certain religious functions, at Monthly Meeting and Quarterly 
and Yearly Meetings, on which they deliberated, before sub- 
mitting them to the whole meeting. This old Oblong Meeting 
House is a mute record and symbol of the century-old contest 
of the Puritan spirit among the old Quakers, striving for an 
inflexibly right relation between the sexes. They attained 
their ends through the creation of a community, but try until 
the community dissolved. 



RELIGION IN TRANSITION 85 

The position of woman among Friends is another eloquent 
tribute to the two-fold "dealing" of Quakerism with women. She 
is man's equal, but she is man's greatest source of danger. She 
must be on a par with him, but she must be apart from him. 
The relations of men and women are therefore very interesting. 
In doctrinal matters, in discussion, in preaching and "testify- 
ing," men and women are equal, and the respect that a man 
has for his wife or sister or neighbor woman, in these func- 
tions of a devout sort is like that he has for another man. 
Generally the men of the Quaker school of influence believe 
as a matter of course in the intellectual and juristic equality of 
women with men ; and in the religious equality of the individual 
woman with the individual man. But in the practical arts and 
in business a woman is a woman and a man is a man. Here 
the women are restricted by convention to housekeeping, which 
on large farms is quite enough for them ; and the men have the 
outdoor life, the "trading," and the gainful occupations — ex- 
cept the boarding of city people. There is no especial respect 
for the "managing woman" who "runs a farm" ; the community 
expects such a woman to fail. 

Moreover, between the sexes there is no camaraderie, no 
companionship of an intellectual sort between husband and 
wife, no free exchange of ideas except in circles made up of 
the members of one sex. In any public meeting the men habit- 
ually sit apart from their wives and from the women members 
of their families, even though the audiences be not bilaterally 
halved. 

The orbits of man's and woman's lives are separate, though 
each ascribes to the individuals of the other sex an ethical and 
religious parity. The effect is seen in the diminishing of the 
numbers of men on the Hill, in the group-life of the women, 
and in the type of woman. It may be well to consider these 
in reverse order. 

The individual Quaker Hill woman, so far as she differs 



86 QUAKER HILL 

from women generally, may be described as a woman almost 
perfectly conformed to type, presenting fewer variations than 
elsewhere, either in the form of youthful prettinesses and 
follies, on in the strenuous opinion of mature years. She is 
neither a flirt as a girl, nor a radical as a woman. Color has 
not yet come into her maidenly days, nor violence of opinion 
into her womanly years. She affects neither fashion nor intel- 
lectual eccentricity. Yet she attains to a better average of rea- 
sonable, sensible action than she could otherwise do. She knows 
less of the impulsive, emotional prettiness of adolescence than 
women of other country communities, and in later years gives 
herself less to intellectual vagaries. Women's rights are estab- 
lished on the Hill ; it is impossible to be strenuous about them. 

The numerous groupings and associations of women are 
especially interesting in view of the fact that the men of the 
Hill have no associations whatever, now that the stores are 
closed ; and are assembled in no fixed groupings. It has never 
been possible, so far as records go, to maintain a society of 
men on the Hill. In the early part of the period under study 
a literary and debating society was organized, with social at- 
tractions; but it was feeble and short-lived. There are not 
enough leaders among the men to make such group-life pos- 
sible. They are related by ties of labor, rather than of class- 
fraternity ; and they have never acquired any interest common 
to their sex to assemble them in groups and companies; 
the discipline of the religion known to the Hill has discour- 
aged and outlawed it. 

This contrast may have something to do with the departure 
of men from the Hill. So long as the stores were in operation, 
at Toffey's, Akin's, and Merritt's places, the men could meet 
there, and had in their assembling a natural group-life, which 
satisfied many with life in the country. But with the closing 
of the stores after the coming of the railroad in 1849, this also 
failed, and the men having no capacity for general association 



RELIGION IN TRANSITION 87 

with one another, and few interests possessed in common 
with the women, have been the more impelled to leave the Hill. 
Economic advantage had only to be as good elsewhere, and 
the man emigrated. I have not known those who have left 
the place, in my knowledge of it, to give as a reason inability 
to make a good living there; but always they have spoken 
most emphatically of the bareness and lack of interest in the 
social life of the Hill as their reason for emigrating to the 
city or large town. 



Part III. 

The Mixed Community, from 1880 to the Present. 

CHAPTER I. 

DEMOTIC COMPOSITION. 

There are ninety-three dwelhngs on Quaker Hill, as de- 
fined above, and illustrated in Map H. The shaded area alone 
is referred to here as the area proper to the term "Quaker 
Hill." In these dwelhngs live four hundred and five persons. 
This gives a density of population of 26.667 P^^ square mile. 
In the summer months of July and August there come to the 
Hill at least five hundred and nineteen more, increasing the 
density of population to more than 61 per square mile. 

There is a steady emmigration from the Hill, due to the 
departure of working-people and their families in search of 
better economic opportunities. This has in ten years removed 
thirty-nine persons. Death has removed or occasioned the 
removal of twenty-seven more, while only three have been 
removed by marriage. 

Over against this there has been an immigration in the 
years 1895 — 1905 of thirty persons ; of whom eleven have 
come in to labor, and nineteen for residence on their own 
property. 

There were resident in 1905 on Quaker Hill the following 
social-economic classes : Professional men, three ; one minister, 
two artists ; wealthy business men, three ; farmers, thirty-eight ; 
laborers, forty (heads of houses). 

There were fifty-three births in ten years, 1895-1905, of 
which fourteen were in the families of property-owners, and 
thirty-nine in families of tenants. There were in these ten 




MAP Xo. II. 

QUAKKR Ilir.l, AM) ViCIXITV. 

(Rased on a tracing of I'nitod States Geogi-aphical Survey.) 



DEMOTIC COMPOSITION 89 

years thirty-one deaths, of which twenty-five were in the 
families of property-owners, and only six in those of tenants. 
Thus the tenant class, bound to the community by no ties of 
property, contributed 73 per cent, of the births and only 20 
per cent, of the deaths, while the property holders suffered 80 
per cent, of the deaths and were increased by only 26.4 per 
cent, of the births. The number of persons in the families of 
property holders in 1905 was 184, and in those of tenants 221. 
These are as one to one and one-fifth. This difference is not 
enough to account for the great disparity in births and deaths 
between the two classes of families. For, allowing for this 
difference, births are two and one-third times as numerous in 
the working and landless class as among the landowners ; and 
deaths are almost three and a half times as many among the 
landholders as among their servants and tenants. 

The present population of the Hill is of a composition which 
is explanable by migration, and by the effect of the topography 
of the Hill upon that population. There is every evidence 
that before the coming of the railroad in 1849 the popu- 
lation was unified, and the community freer of neighborhood 
groupings. The lists of customers who traded at Daniel 
Merritt's store, given in Appendix B of this volume, indicates 
the centering on the Hill of a wide economic Hfe. Every 
record and tradition of a religious sort indicates that the Ob- 
long Meeting House was also the center of a religious com- 
munity as wide-spread as the business of the stores. The Hill 
was one neighborhood until 1828, when the Division of the 
Meeting occurred; and 1849, when the railroad came to 
Pawling. It is not now one neighborhood. Three groupings 
of households may be discerned, roughly designated "The 
North End," "Quaker Hill Proper," and "Wing's Corners." 
The second of these, being the territory most under scrutiny 
in Part HI, might again be divided into the territory "up by 
the Meeting House," and that "down by Mizzen-Top." The 



90 QUAKER HILIv 

difficulty one experiences in naming these groupings of houses 
is a token of the indefiniteness of these divisions. They are 
accentuated by events occurring in the more recent history of 
the Hill. The older history which shapes the consciousness of 
the community does not know these neighborhood divisions. 
Yet the change of the emphasis of travel to the roads running 
east and west, from those north and south, has separated these 
neighborhoods from one another. "The North End," there- 
fore, is composed of those households between Sites i and 15, 
who go to the village of Pawling for "trading" and "to take 
the cars," along the road which passes Sites 16 to 18. 
They include Hammersley Lake and Kurd's Corners in their 
interests. 

The "Middle Distance," or as I would call it "The Meeting 
House Neighborhood," is composed of those households from 
Sites 21 to 41 ; "the Hotel Neighborhood," of those from Site 
42 to 95 ; and these all, whether regarded as one or as two 
sections, go habitually to the village by the "Mizzen-Top road," 
past Sites 99 and 113. 

"Wing's Corner" is properly the name of Site 100, but it 
may serve for a title of the southern neighborhood from Site 
122 to 104. From this neighborhood all travel to the valley 
by the road westward from the "Corners." 

The "North End" and "Wing's Corners" are settled almost 
entirely by Americans, and until within the past two years, 
by families derived from the original population. "Quaker 
Hill Proper" is the place of residence of the Irish- Americans. 
It has been also the place of residence of the last of the 
Quakers during the period, just closed, of the Mixed Com- 
munity. It is also the territory in which land has the highest 
value. Here also are the residences of all the persons of ex- 
ceptional wealth. 

The community most cherishes the central territory, lying 
upon the two miles of road between the Mizzen-Top Hotel and 



DEMOTIC COMPOSITION 9 1 

the Meeting House, and extending beyond these points and 
on either hand one-half mile. Within this area land is nomin- 
ally held at a thousand dollars an acre. 

"The proximate causes of demotic composition," says Pro- 
fessor Giddings,* "are organic variation and migration. The 
ultimate causes are to be looked for in the characteristics of 
the physical environment." The Quaker Hill population, 
drawn originally from a common source, was in 1828 perfectly 
homogeneous. The very intensity of the communal life had 
effected the elimination of strange and other elements, and 
preserved only the Quakers, and those who could live with the 
Quakers. Since 1849 this population has become increasingly 
heterogeneous. It is not yet a blended stock. There is but 
little vital mixture of the elements entering into social and 
economic union here. They do not generally intermarry. They 
are related only by economic facts and by religious sympathies, 
so that the effect of organic variation does not yet appear 
among them. But in this chapter the effect of immigration 
will be indicated. 

The influence of the physical environment is worthy of 
brief notice. Between one and another of the three neighbor- 
hoods lie stretches of land, nearly a mile wide, valued less 
highly than that on which the clusters of houses stand. In 
the days before the railroad, the population passed over this 
territory to the centers of the community in the three stores 
at Toffey's, Akin's and Muritt's places, and to the Meeting 
House. But with the necessity of driving westward to the 
railway, the stretches of road passing poorer land had dimin- 
ished use, and the clusters of households, once closely related, 
ceased to interchange reactions and services ; so a segragation 
of neighborhoods began, which is increasing with time. 

The list of members of the Meeting in Appendix A, and 
that of customers of one of the stores in Appendix B, will 
serve to show the extent of the community, religious and econ- 

*Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. ii8. 



92 QUAKER HILL 

omic, in the eighteenth century. A steady shrinkage has drawn 
in the margins of this communal Hfe. At this date Quaker 
Hill receives no tribute from any outer territory; and might 
be confined to the limits of "Quaker Hill Proper," as some in- 
deed call the "Middle Distance." The present writer, while 
not so limiting the Hill, has omitted both Burch Hill to the 
south and the stretches toward Webatuck to the north, which 
lie in other towns. 

Just a word about neighborhood character. There is no 
especial character localized in the Wing's Corners neighbor- 
hood. The central territory has been fully described in this 
book, and especially in the chapters on "The Common Mind," 
and "Practical Differences and Resemblances." "The North 
End" is the most isolated of any neighborhood included within 
the Hill population. Its families are less directly derived from 
Quaker stock. The older Quaker families once living there 
have disappeared. It is a genial, kindly, chatty neighborhood, 
without the exalted sense of past importance or of present 
day prestige which affects the manners of "Quaker Hill 
Proper." It has, moreover, none of the Irish-American resi- 
dents, and until recently no New York families. The seven 
family groups resident in these fifteen houses have been long 
acquainted, and have become used to one another. A kindly, 
tolerant feeling prevails. Gossip is not forbidden. Standards 
of conduct are not stretched upon high ideals, and a preference 
for enjoyments shows itself in a greater leisure and a laxer 
industry than in the central portion of the Hill. 

The greater distance from the railway also forbids some 
of the activities of "Quaker Hill Proper." The milk wagon 
which in 1893 — 1899 was driven each day from Site i to the 
railway, gathering up the milk cans on the successive farms, 
has been discontinued, and in winter the road between Sites 
15 and 21 is often blocked with snow for weeks. The resident 
at Site 3 has for about twenty years maintained a slaughter- 
house and a wagon for the sale of meat, using his land for 



DEMOTIC COMPOSITION 93 

fatting cattle and sheep, and selling the meat along two routes. 
The resident at Site 15 maintains a fish-wagon, buying his fish 
at the railways and selling at the houses along selected routes, 
through the summer. The other residents follow the diversified 
farming, based on grazing, which in this country includes 
fatting of calves and pigs, raising of poultry and other small 
agricultural industries. One family only in this neighborhood 
takes boarders in the summer. 

The peculiar religious character of Quaker Hill had by 
1880 drawn in its margins to "Quaker Hill Proper," though 
the population in these outlying neighborhoods had a passive 
acquiescence in it. They still respond to the activities which 
are centered in the focal neighborhood. Of themselves, none 
of these neighborhoods originates any religious activity. 

In this connection mention should be made of the Connecti- 
<:ut neighborhood known as Coburn, in which a certain relation 
to Quaker Hill has always been maintained. It is not here 
regarded as a Quaker Hill neighborhood. Its characteristics 
are those of Connecticut, and its traditions are not Quaker, in 
a pure sense; but Quaker Hill has influenced it not a little, 
religiously. In Coburn remains a measurable deposit of 
Quaker Hill population. 

Among the changes wrought by the railroad was the intro- 
duction of new social elements into the community. The 
Quaker population had become divided into rich and poor, 
but all were of the same general stock. The parents of all 
had the same experience to relate. Their fathers had come 
to Quaker Hill in the early or middle part of the eigtheenth 
century, had endured together the hardships of pioneer days, 
had known the "unity" of Quaker discipline for one hun- 
dred years, and had held loyally to the ideas and standards 
of Quakerism. 

With the approach of the railroad came Irish laborers, 
who settled first in the valley below, generally in the limits 



94 QUAKER HILL 

of Pawling village, and later came on the Hill as workers on 
the farms in the new forms of dairy industry to which the 
farmers were stimulated by the railroad. This immigration 
continued from 1840 until i860. In that time, a period of 
about twenty years, there came laborers for almost all the 
farmers on the Hill. I am informed that in the decade fol- 
lowing the Civil War the work on all the farms, "from 
"Wing's corner to the North End," was done by young 
Irishmen. 

The first Irishmen of this immigration whose names appear 
upon the tax-lists of the town of Pawling are Owen and 
Patrick Denany, who are assessed upon one hundred acres in 
1845, the land upon which they first settled being in the west- 
ern part of the town. These two brothers came before the 
railroad was extended to Pawling, in 1840. In 1867 Patrick 
moved to Quaker Hill and bought a place, midway between 
Sites 128 and 131. Thomas Guilshan in 1858 and years fol- 
lowing was taxed upon nine acres, the land upon which his 
widow still lives, at Site 93. John Brady lived for years at 
Site 71, and in a house now removed except for traces of a 
cellar, about fifty feet southeast of the Akin Free Library, 
lived Charles Kiernan. Among the earliest Irish Catholics 
came James Cullom and Margaret, his wife, who acquired 
land at Site 34. Other names of the earlier Irish generations 
are Hugh Clark, who acquired land at Site 116, James Rooney, 
Fergus Fahey, James Doyle, Kate Leary, James Hopper, who 
settled in Pawling or Hurd's Comer, and David Burns, who 
became a landowner at Site 117. 

The Irish Catholics early differentiated into two classes, 
only one of which, with their children, remains to the present 
day. There were the "loose-footed fellows," who followed 
the railroad, worked for seasons on the farms, drifted on with 
the renewal of demand for railroad laborers, and disappeared 
from the Hill. Their places were taken, in the years follow- 



DEMOTIC COMPOSITION 95 

ing 1880, by American laborers, and a very few other for- 
eigners, of whom I will speak below. The other class of 
Irish Catholics sought to own land. The details given above 
indicate their promptness in acquiring interest in the soil. 
From them has been recruited almost all the present Catholic 
population of the Hill, which in 1905 amounted in all to 
twenty-five households and one hundred persons. 

Whereas the early immigration of Irish worked in all the 
dairies from one end of the Hill to the other, the land owned 
by Irish-Americans now is all in the central portion of the 
Hill, within a radius of one mile from Mizzen-Top Hotel. 
Within this mile also all the Irish laborers employed on 
the Hill are at work. They are employed about the Hotel, on 
the places of the wealthier landowners of the Hill, and in such 
independent trades as stone-mason, blacksmith or wheelwright. 
Only an occasional Irish-American is found among the hired 
hands on the dairy farms. 

In contrast to the indifference of the original population 
of the town to education, it is worthy of note that the grand- 
son of an Irish-American named above promises at this writ- 
ing to be the first youth born in the town to graduate from a 
higher institution of learning, being in his last year at West 
Point. 

The Irish population who have remained on the Hill are 
singularly homogeneous, and thoroughly imbued with the 
spirit of the place. In the chapter on "The Ideals of the New 
Quakerism," I have commented on Irish acquisition of a char- 
acter like that of the Quakers. The gentlenes.'s of manner, 
the quickness of social sympathy and the industrious quiet- 
ness of the Quakers have come to be theirs. Yet they are 
loyal Catholics, and with very few exceptions support their 
Church in the village regularly. Many of them who have 
not conveyances have for years employed a stage-driver to 
transport them on Sunday morning to St. Bernard's Church. 



96 QUAKER HILl, 

This church has been built by the Irish and Irish- Americans. 
At the time of their coming in 1840- 1850, there was no Catho- 
lic church, and "if you wanted to hear mass said, you had to 
drive to Poughkeepsie." Later, a tent was erected for a time, 
for the Catholic services, then a Baptist church building was 
purchased. This building was destroyed by fire about 1875, 
and the present structure in the village was erected. 

The Catholic population of the Hill is now equal to the 
Quaker population, there being of each twenty-five house- 
holds ; the old and the new. But each has gone through strik- 
ing changes since the Catholics came, sixty years ago. "When 
I was a boy," says a prominent Irish-American, "you could 
hardly see the road here for the carriages and the dust, all of 
them Quakers going to the Old Meeting House, on Sunday, 
or to Quarterly Meeting. But now they are all gone." The 
religious faithfulness of those Friends of two generations ago 
has descended upon no part of the population more fully than 
upon the handful of Catholic families, who now drive to Paw- 
ling every Sunday in great wagon-loads, while the members 
of the Quaker households have closed their meeting houses 
forever. 

Of the Irish-Catholic population here described only eleven 
are Irish born. The rest, about ninety in number, are Ameri- 
can born of Irish parents. 

The other elements who have been adopted into the Quaker 
Hill population are small in number in comparison with the 
Irish. They are among the working people, one Swiss, two 
Poles, who have bought small places at Sites 42 and 75, re- 
spectively; and two New York ladies who about 1890 pur- 
chased places at Sites 41 and 35, who have become a strong 
influence, being socially and religiously in sympathy with the 
original Quaker population. Their influence is described in 
the chapter upon "The Common Mind of the Mixed Com- 
munity." Purchases of land have been made in the years 



DEMOTIC COMPOSITION 97 

1905- 1907, more than in the preceding decade, by persons com- 
ing from outside the Quaker Hill population, all of the buyers 
being from New York City. These purchases are all upon 
the outer fringes of the Hill territory, at Sites 107, 108, ill, 
118, in the southwestern part, and Sites 6 and 10 in the 
"North End," and in the Coburn neighborhood. Sites 88 and 
others near the Meeting House, Site 139. The land in the 
central section has changed hands, in the years 1890-1907, 
only through the increase in the holdings of those who owned 
large estates before the period of the Mixed GDmmunity. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE ECONOMY OF HOUSE AND FIELD. 

The hospitality of the Quakers is worthy of a treatise, not 
of the critical order, but poetic and imaginative. It cannot be 
described in mere social analysis. It has grown out of their 
whole order of life, and expresses their religious view, as well 
as their economic habits. I showed in Chapter VII, Part I, 
that the hospitality of the Friends acquired religious import- 
ance from their belief that in every man is the Spirit of God. 
With the simplicity, and direct adherence to a few truths, which 
characterized the early Friends this belief was practiced, and 
became one of the religious customs of the Society. They 
entertained travellers, "especially such as were of the household 
of faith." They made it a religious tenet to house and welcome 
"Friends travelling on truth's account." 

With equal directness they proceeded further to welcome 
every traveller, and to endure often the intrusions of those who 
would not be desired as guests, because they believed that such 
might be acting by the divine impulse. 

The hospitality, therefore, of such a community is very 
beautiful. For they have their ways of asserting themselves, in 
spite of non-resistance. They open their doors, they set their 
table, with a religious spirit. A thoroughness characterizes all 
their household arrangements, a grace is given to all their 
housekeeping, which infuses an indescribable content into the 
experiences of a g^est in these homes. Their hospitality to one 
another has been therefore a powerful enginery for continuing 
and for extending the domains of Quakerism. 

On Quaker Hill the living generations have known this 
hospitality in two notable ways only, in the Quarterly Meetings, 



OF HOUSE AND FIELD 99 

and in the transformed hospitality of the boarding-house. The 
Quarterly Meeting is now gone from the Hill. Both the Hick- 
site Meeting, which was "laid down" in 1885, and the Orthodox 
Meeting, which ceased to meet in 1905, brought in their day 
to the Hill, once in the year, an inundation of guests, who 
stayed through the latter days of a week, and then went their 
way, to meet quarterly throughout the year, but in other places, 
until the season came again for Quaker Hill, 

The Quaker Hill Quarterly was in August, and "after 
haying." "The roads were full of the Quakers going up to 
the Meeting House." In every Quaker home they were wel- 
comed, whether they had written to announce their coming, or 
whether they had not. All through the days of the Meeting, 
they would renew the old ties, and discuss the passing of the 
Society, the interests of the Kingdom, as they saw it, "the 
things of the spirit." 

They meet no more. In the Quarterly Meeting, which 
comprises the Monthly Meetings of an area comparable to 
Dutchess County, there are still some Friends, and some meet- 
ings which are not "laid down." But they come no more, at 
"Quarterly Meeting time" to Quaker Hill. Many of the older 
members are dead. Of the younger members many have only 
a passive adherence to Quakerism, only sufficient to excuse 
them from undesirable worldiness, and from irksome respon- 
sibility in other religious bodies. 

The hospitality of the old Quaker assemblings has passed 
over into the business of boarding city people. The same table 
is set, the same welcome given ; but to the paid guest. 

The passing of the old hospitality of the Friends was illus- 
trated in the years of the writer's residence on the Hill, in 
the person of an old peddler, known as Charles Eagle. It had 
been the ancient custom to entertain any and every wayfarer; 
and Eagle journeyed from South to North about once a 
month in the warmer seasons, for many years. He had en- 

LOFC. 



lOO QUAKER HII,!, 

joyed the entertainment of the Quakers, following the ancient 
line of their settlements along the Oblong, and stopping over 
night in their ample, kindly households. He carried a pack 
on his back and another large bundle in his hand. His pace 
was slow, like that of an ox, but untiring and unresting, hour 
after hour. His person, sturdy and short, was clothed in 
overall stuff, elaborately patched and mended. At first sight 
it seemed to be patched from use and age ; but closer inspec- 
tion showed that the patches were deliberately sewed on the 
new material. He wore a straw hat in summer, decorated 
with a bright ribbon, in which were flowers in season. He 
wore also a red wig, tied under his chin with a ribbon. His 
face was like that of an Indian, with broad cheek-bones and 
small shifting eyes. 

Eagle was French, and professed to be a refugee, a person 
of interest to foreign monarchs. On the inner wrapping of 
his pack was written large, "Vive le Napoleon! Vive la 
France! Vive!" He had little hesitation about speaking of 
himself, though always with stilted courtesy, and always 
furtively. 

He made a study of astronomy, and every night would ask 
his hostess, with much apology but firm insistence, for a 
pitcher of water, and for the privilege that he might retire 
early to his room, open the window and view the stars. 
Strange to say, in this he was not merely eccentric; for his 
reading was of the latest books on the science, and he ex- 
changed with Akin Hall Library a Young's Astronomy for a 
Newcomb's, in 1898. He accompanied the presentation of the 
later book, in which was the author's name inscribed with a 
note to Mr. Eagle, with a demonstration of a theory of the 
Aurora Borealis. 

Eagle never tried to sell his goods on the Hill, and indeed 
it is doubtful if he carried them for any other purpose than 
to conceal his real commodities, which were watches. Of 



Ot HOUSE AND FIEI^D lOI 

these he carried a good selection of the better and of the 
cheaper sorts, all concealed in the center of his pack, among 
impossible dry goods and varied fancy wares. 

An attempt was made to rob him, or at least to annoy 
him, by some young men; and he shot one of his assailants. 
For this offence he was, after trial, sent to the Asylum for 
the Criminal Insane. 

His earlier journeys over the Hill found him a welcome 
guest at the Quaker homes. But the substitution of boarding 
for the ancient hospitality made the peddler unwelcome; and 
he passed through without stopping in his later years. 

The Quarterly Meeting of the Society of Friends was the 
annual culmination of the hospitality of the Hill population. 
Coming in August, "after haying," it was for a century and 
a half the great assembly of the people of the Hill, and of their 
kindred and friends; and until the Orthodox Meeting ceased 
to meet, in 1905, there was Quarterly Meeting in the smaller 
Meeting House. The old hospitality was never diminished 
by the Quakers as long as their meetings continued. Even 
though the same house were filled with paying boarders, the 
family retreated to the attic, the best rooms were devoted to 
the "Friends travelling on truth's account;" and the same 
house saw hospitality of the old sort extended for one week to 
the religious guests, and of the new sort faithfully set forth 
for the guests who paid for it by the week. 

The Quakeress and daughter of Quakers has produced the 
summer boarding-house; which is no more than the ample 
Quaker home, organized to extend the thrifty hospitality con- 
tinuously for four months, for good payment in return, which 
has always been extended to Friends and visiting relatives for 
longer or shorter periods in the past, as an act of household 
grace. 

The Quaker Hill woman is a good housekeeper. The sub- 
stantial farmhouses on the Hill are outward signs of excellent 



I02 QUAKER HILL 

homes within. The table is well spread, with a measured 
abundance, which satisfies but does not waste. The rooms are 
each furnished forth in spare and and righteous daintiness, 
over which nowadays is poured, in occasional instances, a 
pretty modern color, timidly laid on, which does not remove 
the prim Quakerness. Ventures in the use of decoration, how- 
ever, have been crude in most cases, and the results, so 
far as they have been effected by the taste of the woman of 
the Hill, are incongruous in color, and ill-assorted in design. 
It is in house-furnishing that the tendency of the daughter of 
the Quakers shows the most frequent variation. Occasionally 
one sees the outcropping of a really artistic spirit — peculiarly 
refreshing because so rare— which has only in a woman's 
mature years ventured to indulge in a bit of happy color ; but 
the venture if successful is always reserved and simple; and 
the most of such ventures are of unhappy result. 

The housekeeping arts have reached a high degree of per- 
fection on the Hill. Cooking is there done with a precision, 
economy and tastefulness in sharp contrast to the non-aesthetic 
manner in which the Quakers conduct most occupations. It is, 
moreover, a kind of cooking after the Quaker manner, at once 
frugal and abundant. For of all people, the Quakers have 
learned to manage generously and economically. 

The outcome of this housekeeping is the diversion of much 
of the business energy of the Hill to the "keeping of boarders." 
Seven of the old Quaker families, and one Irish Catholic 
household are devoted to the keeping of boarders ; five of them 
being supported in the main by this business. Of these five 
families, however, four reside upon farms of more than one 
hundred and fifty acres apiece. These families sell at certain 
times in the year, a certain quantity of milk, or make butter, 
or fatten calves, but not as their central means of support. 

To these farmhouses come year after year the same paying 
guests, each house having its own constituency, built up 



OF HOUSE AND FIELD IO3 

through thirty years of patient and unbroken service. The 
charm of the Quaker character, the excellence of the cooking 
and the enjoyable character of the other factors of the house- 
hold, bring patrons back; while the benefits of the elevation 
and pure air are, to city dwellers, material returns for the 
moneys expended. For this board, the price charged is, in the 
Irish Catholic household, five dollars per week ; in one of the 
oldtime Quaker houses, six dollars, and in the others from 
eight to ten or twelve dollars per week. 

The season in which boarders can be secured in pay- 
ing numbers is a period extending from June fifteenth to 
October first, with the houses filled only in the months of July 
and August. For this period, which is one continued strain 
upon the housekeepers and their aids, preparation begins as 
early as the month of March. The housework is generally 
done by the women of the family, with some employed help, 
of an inferior sort. The horses and carriages on the farm 
must be used for the transportation of guests, and for hire to 
those who drive for pleasure. On one farm sheep are kept; 
though most of the boarding-houses buy their meat supplies 
of the dealers mentioned below. 

Of late years the help employed in these boarding-houses, 
in addition to members of the family, has come to be negroes 
from Culpepper County, Virginia. These employees come 
each spring and return in the fall. 

The one Irish Catholic boarding-house is for the entertain- 
ment of the hired men on the lower part of the Hill, near 
the Hotel. It is maintained throughout the year, with a vary- 
ing number of guests, by a woman ninety years of age, who 
in addition to the management, does much of the hard work 
herself. 

The conservatism of the Hill families is shown in the fact 
that the boarding-house business has never been extended. No 
house has ever been erected for that purpose alone; but the 



104 QUAKER HI LI. 

present business of that sort is carried on in the old Quaker 
homes, each receiving only as many paid guests as it was used 
to receive of its hospitable duty, when the Quarterly Meeting 
brought Friends from afar, once in the year. 

Mizzen-Top Hotel is perhaps an exception, if, indeed, a 
large hotel, with quarters for two hundred and fifty guests, 
and at prices ranging from three dollars per day up, be an 
exception. It has grown out of the same conditions which 
transformed the farmhouses into boarding-houses, save that it 
has never been managed at a profit, and they never at a loss. 
It is, however, an institution by itself, and will be treated in 
another place. 

The Mizzen-Top Hotel has always been a sober institution, 
influenced thereto by the pleasureless spirit of the Hill. Base- 
ball, tennis, and golf in their times have had vogue there, but 
under every management it has been hard to arouse and main- 
tain active interest in outdoor or indoor sports. The direct 
road to Hammersley Lake, formerly called Quaker Hill Pond, 
has made possible a moderate indulgence in carriage-driving. 
The laying out of the golf links in 1897 set going that dignified 
sport, just as the Way-side Path in 1880 occasioned some 
mild pedestrianism. But the Hotel diminishes rather than in- 
creases in its play-activities ; and only games of cards retain 
a hold upon the guests, who prefer the piazza, the croquet 
ground, the tennis court, and the golf links in rapidly dimin- 
ishing proportion. 

Intemperance was common in earlier times, and drinking 
was universal. Every household made and stored for winter 
many barrels of cider. Rum and wine were freely bought 
at the store. Their use in the harvest field was essential to 
the habits of agriculture which preceded the times of the 
mower and reaper. This free use of cider, with accompanying 
intemperance, survives in only two houses on Quaker Hill. 

Miss Taber's account, in "Some Glimpses of the Past," de- 



OF HOUSE AND FIELD IO5 

scribes the drinking habits of the older period : "It was cus- 
tomary to have cider on the table at every meal, the ladies 
would have their tea, but most of the men drank cider largely, 
many to excess, consequently there were great quantities made 
in the fall and stored in the cellars during the winter. A 
large farmer would lay out a great deal of work, gathering 
from ten to twenty cartloads of apples, hooping and cleaning 
barrels, and many ground and pressed their own cider, then 
the large casks were drawn to and placed in the cellars. This 
usually occupied a large part of the month of October. In 
the spring a portion of the hard cider would be taken to a 
distiller, and made into cider brandy to be used in the haying 
and harvest field, at sheep washings, butchering, raisings, 
shearings and on many occasions. Some was always on the 
sideboard and often on the table. In most households there 
were sideboards well furnished with spirits, brandy, home- 
made wine, metheglin, etc., which were offered to guests. It 
was a fashion or custom to offer a drink of some kind when- 
ever a neighbor called. 

"My grandfather being obliged to have so many men at 
least two months each year became disgusted with the custom 
of furnishing so much cider and spirits to the men in the 
field, as many of them would come to the house at supper 
time without any appetite and in a quarrelsome mood. There 
would be wrestlings and fighting during the evening and the 
chain in the well could be heard rattling all night long. So 
one year, probably about 1835 or '36, he decided that he would 
do it no longer. His brother and many of his neighbors tried 
to dissuade him and prophesied that he would not be able 
to get sufficient help to secure his crops, but he declared he 
would give up farming before he would endure it any longer, 
and announced when securing his extra help for that summer 
that he would furnish no cider or spirits in the field, but that 
coflfee and other drinks would be carried out and that every 



Io6 QUAKER HILL 

man should have a ration of spirits at each meal. Most of the 
men he had had in past years came back and seemed to be glad 
to be out of the way of temptation. The next year he dis- 
pensed with the ration at meal times, and the custom grew 
among his neighbors with surprising rapidity; it was but a 
few years when it became general, with a few exceptions, 
where the farmer himself was fond of it, until to-day such a 
thing is not heard of, and in fact, the farmer, like the railroads 
and other large corporations, do not care to employ a man 
that is in the habit of using spirits at all." 

In the years 1890- 1905 there were only two families on 
the Hill which followed primitive custom in "putting in cider" 
into the cellar in quantity for the winter. In five more a very 
small quantity was kept. In the other cases it was regarded 
as immoral to use the beverage. The writer was only once 
offered a drink of alcoholic beverage in six years' residence 
on the Hill. 

In respect to the standard of living which is regarded as 
necessary to the maintenance of respect and social position, 
the Hill exhibits two strata of the population. The city people, 
and the farmers and laborers. The former class, besides the 
Hotel and its cottages, comprise seven households, who have 
formed their ways of living upon the city standard. The 
others, resident all the year round upon the Hill, live after a 
standard common to American country-people generally of 
the better class. 

The economic ideas and habits are in no way peculiar to 
the Hill. There survive in a few old persons some primitive 
industrial habits. One old lady, now about ninety, amuses her- 
self with spinning, knitting and weaving ; keeping alive all the 
primitive processes from the shearing of sheep in her son's 
field to the completed garment. Axe-helves are still made by 
hand in the neighborhood. 

The practical arts of the community are agriculture, es- 



OF HOUSE AND FIELD IO7 

pecially the cultivation of grass for hay, cooking and general 
housekeeping, and the entertainment of paid guests, as "board- 
ers" in farmhouse and hotel. There is in addition on one 
farm, at Site No. 3, a slaughter-house, at which beef and 
mutton and pork are prepared for market, the animals being 
bought, pastured, fattened and killed on the place, and the 
meat delivered to customers, especially in the summer months, 
by means of a wagon, which makes its journey twice a week, 
over the length of the Hill and in the country eastward. 

There is also a fish-wagon owned and maintained by the 
resident at Site No. 15, which buys fish during the year and 
maintains by means of a wagon a similar trade. These two 
are the only food supply businesses maintained on the Hill. 

Economic opportunity has always appealed strongly to 
the Quaker Hill man and woman. In 1740 John Tofl[ey settled 
at the crossing of ways which is called "Toffey's Corners," 
and began to make hats. Other industries followed. 

In recent years, in almost every Quaker house boarders 
have been taken, and a better profit has been made than from 
the sale of milk. For twenty-five years the Mizzen-Top Hotel, 
accommodating two hundred and fifty guests, has represented 
notably this response to opportunity. The beautiful scenery^ / 
which the Quaker himself does not appreciate, because he has 
educated himself out of the appreciation of color and form, has 
offered him an opportunity of profit which he has been prompt 
and diligent to sieze. All through the summer every one of 
the six largest Quaker homesteads is filled with guests. The 
fact cited above that in the summer there comes to the Hill a 
greater transient population than dwells there through the 
year, a population of guests, illustrates this lively economic 
alertness. 

The emigration from the Hill since 1840 of so many persons,, 
notably the younger and more ambitious, is in itself a token 
of this response. The railroad brought the opportunity; the 



I08 QUAKER HILL 

ambitious accepted it; many whole families have disappeared. 
Their strong members emigrated; the weaker stock died out. 
The Merritt, Vanderburgh, Irish, Wing, Sherman, Akin, and 
other families offer examples. In the place of those who de- 
parted have come others, to fill the total population. There 
were in 1905 on the Hill twenty-five old families with seventy- 
five persons, and twenty-five Irish Catholic families with one 
hundred persons. 

The response to economic opportunity has often been too 
keen, and the attempt too grasping. In 1891 wealthy New 
Yorkers offered for certain farms so located as to command 
beautiful views, prices almost double what they are worth for 
farming. The reply was a demand in every case of one thou- 
sand dollars more than was offered; and the result was — no 
sale. 

Land is valued, though few sales are made, at $1,000 per 
acre, near the Hotel. The acre numbered 42, one mile from 
Mizzen-Top, on Map II, was sold in 1893 to a laboring man 
for $250. At 53, land was sold in 1903 for $700 per acre. 
At 52, three acres were sold by sisters to a brother in 1895, 
the asking-price being $1,000 per acre, and the price paid $800 
per acre. For farming, this land is worth $50 and $75 
per acre. Four miles further inland as good recently sold for 
$10 per acre. Quaker Hill has not neglected its economic 
opportunities. 

Nearness to the soil has, under the influences of Quaker 
ethics and economic ambition, cultivated in this population a 
patient and steadfast industry, which expresses itself in the 
milk dairy, a form of farming by its nature requiring early 
hours and late, with all the day between filled by various duties. 
I have shown above that this industry is losing its hold on 
the farmers of the Hill, but for two generations it has been 
the distinctive type of labor on the Hill. To rise at four or 
even earlier in the morning and to prepare the milk, to deliver 



OF house; and field 109 

it at the station, four to eight miles away, to attend to the wants 
of cows from twenty to one hundred in number ; to prepare the 
various food-products, either by raising from the soil, or by 
carting from the railroad, — these activities filled, ten years 
ago, the lives of one hundred and four of the adult males of 
the community; and these activities at present fill the time of 
sixty of the adult males of the community.* 

While "the milk business" is a declining industry, other 
things are not less engrossing. The land must be tilled, and 
is tilled. Hay is the greatest crop, and the mere round of 
the seasons brings for a community used to agriculture a dis- 
cipline and a course of labor, which make life regular and 
industrious. 

Farming, as stated above, is carried on with a view to the 
production of milk for the city market. It is a laborious and 
exacting occupation. The dairy cow, generally of the Hoi' 
stein stock, or with a strain of Holstein in her blood, is thi 
most common variety ; though the grass of the Hill is so good 
that very rich milk is produced by "red cow, just plain farmer's 
cow," as the local description runs; and the demands of the 
middlemen have brought in some Jersey cattle, which are 
desired, because of the greater proportion of cream they 
produce. The largest profit from the "making of milk" is 
secured by those farmers who keep as many cows as can be 
fed from the land owned by them. But the more ambitious 
farmers rent land, and in a few cases on a small farm keep so 
many cattle that they have to buy even hay and corn. It is 
necessary for the farmer, in order to meet the demands of the 
city market, to feed his cattle on grains not raised on the Hill. 
One hundred years ago the lands of the Hill were planted in 
wheat, rye, corn and other grains, but to-day the farmers buy 
all grains, except corn, of which an increasing quantity is 

*Mr. E. I. Hurd is my authority for the following statement. "In the total 
income of the farmers of Pawling, nine dollars are paid them for milk for every 
dollar in payment for other products." 



no QUAKER HILL 

being raised, and oats, of which they do not raise enough for 
the use of their horses. There are no silos used on the Hill, 
the city milkmen having a standing objection to the milk of 
cows fed on ensilage. 

The labor problem created by the milk business is an acute 
one. One man can milk not more than twenty cows, and he 
is a stout farm-hand who can daily milk more than twelve 
or fifteen. As a farmer must keep between twenty and forty 
cows to do justice to his acreage, on the average Hill farm, 
there must be at least two men, and often there must be five 
or six men employed on the farm. To secure this number of 
capable men, to keep them, and to pay them are hard problems. 
Their wages have risen in the past twelve years, from fourteen 
dollars a month and board to twenty-three dollars and board ; 
or for a married man, who has house rent, wood, and time 
to cut it, garden and time to tend it, and a quart of milk a 
day, the wages have risen from twenty-eight to thirty-five dol- 
lars a month. 

These men are recruited from a class born in the country, 
and of a drifting, nomadic spirit ; and from the city, the latter 
a sinister, dangerous element, whom the farmers fear and sus- 
pect. On a large farm, with five men in employ, the farmer 
may expect to replace one man each month ; and to replace his 
whole force at least once a year. So changeable are the minds 
of this class of laborers. 

Those who are married are somewhat more stable; but of 
the others it is asserted by the farmers that out of their wages 
they save nothing. 

There has been a rise in the price secured by the farmers 
for their milk in the past ten years, but it has been only for 
limited periods. The variation was from 1.9 cents and 2 cents, 
the price in 1895-98, to 3 cents, the price paid in the winter of 
1907. In the summer the price is always lower. The farmers 
have no control over the price paid them for milk, nor have 



OP HOUSE AND FIELD III 

they control over the prices to be paid for labor, though of 
course in this matter, there is room for a certain skill in bar- 
gaining and for the lowering of the total wages paid on the 
farm through the skilfull employment of the cheaper kinds of 
hands. 

There is also a difference in the price paid for milk by 
''the Milk Factory," a plant established at the railway in the 
past ten years, in each dairy-town. This establishment takes 
milk from the poorer dairies under conditions less exacting 
than are laid down by some buyers, and in consequence pays 
a price correspondingly lower than the market rates for milk 
and the higher prices secured by the better farmers. 

One energetic farmer, who has in the past five years had 
large farms to manage, on hire, or on shares, has prepared 
milk for hospital use in the city, meeting the exactions of in- 
spection, and the prescribed care of stables, animals, workmen 
and receptacles in a way intolerable to the average farmer. 
He receives in return a price twenty per cent above the 
market rate. 

The effect of the above conditions is seen in the fact that 
in the twelve years under study nine owners of large farms 
have "given up the milk business," have sold their cows, or 
keeping them have made butter and fatted calves for market. 
The profits to be made in dairy-farming are so small, unless 
the farmer conduct his dairy in an exceptional manner, or on 
a very large scale, that the average man on the Hill cannot 
continue it. Indeed, the average farmer on the Hill is unable 
through lack of vitality or incapacity for application, to con- 
duct any business, successfully, against competition. The state 
of mind of such men, in the worst cases, is illustrated by the 
remark of one of them who approached a successful dairy- 
man, saying: "I am going to cease to make milk for the city 
market, and I thought I would come to you and find out 
something about the way to make butter — not the best butter, 
such as you make, but a sort of second-class butter." 



CHAPTER III. 

NEW IDEAI^S OF QUAKERISM : ASSIMILATION OF STRANGERS. 

Quaker Hill has always been a community with great 
powers of assimilation. The losses suffered by emigration 
have been repaired by the genius of the community for 
socializing. Whoever comes becomes a loyal learner of the 
Quaker Hill ways. I think this is a matter of imitation. Per- 
sonality has here made a solemn effort to perfect itself for a 
century and a half; and the characters of Richard Osborn, 
James J. Vanderburgh, Anne Hayes, David Irish and his 
daughter, Phoebe Irish Wanzer, ripened into possession of 
at least amazing power of example. I must be sparing of 
illustration here, where too rich a store is at hand. I wiU 
offer only this striking fact, observed by all who know the 
Hill: the Irish emigrant and his American-born children, of 
whom there are now as many as remain of the original 
Quakers, have come to be as good Quakers in character — 
though still loyal Catholics in dogma — as if they said "thee 
and thou," and wore drab. They are peaceable, gentle folk, 
sober and inoffensive; and the transforming influence of 
Quaker character is seen in certain of them in a marked 
degree. 

The same statement may be made of the pervasive example 
of the Quaker character upon other areas of population ; ser- 
vants who come from the city, summer guests, artistic people 
who love the Hill for its beauty and suggestiveness, ministers 
and other public teachers who come hither. 

The area to the southeast, called "Coburn," settled to a 
degree by those who have worked on the Hill in times past as 
employees, is touched with the same manner. Its meeting 



ASSIMILATION 01^ STRANGERS II3 

house, erected over sixty years ago, even retains the Quaker 
way of seating the men and women apart. 

The Quaker Hill Conference, now in its ninth year, is 
another illustration of the charm and reach of the gentle in- 
fluence of the Quaker Hill ideal upon personal character. 

Suggestion also explains much. In such a social whole, 
manners and customs are fixed. The newcomer is often fresh, 
ingenuous, and sometimes intrusive. Little by little he becomes 
socialized. Ways of action are fixed for him, and a range of 
performance comes to be his. In harmony with this range, 
suggestion is very fertile ; but one learns after a time that there 
is a limit to its force beyond which individuals will not go. 
Suggestion, to be effective upon the many, must come from 
the sources which embody the community's religious and econ- 
omic ideal. 

Ideas, once broached, are usually, if they contemplate action, 
opposed, at least by inertness ; but after a time they reappear 
as if native to the minds which would have none of them by 
leasonable approaches. This process is accelerated if the sug- 
gestion begins to travel from mind to mind. Some individuals 
are less slow than others; and the leaders of Quaker Hill 
thinking have always been able to work by the plan of academic 
proposal — to avoid rejection — followed by incitement of popu- 
lar action in particular quarters. Quaker Hill cannot bear 
to be divided; and that which comes to be successful in one 
quarter soon comes to be universal. Things can be done by 
social suggestion which could never be accomplished by ap- 
peal or rational discussion. 

The word that has formed the social mind of Quaker Hill 
has been, not "the Spirit," not *'the inner light," but "ortho- 
doxy" or "plainness." For this community, it must be remem- 
bered, had no great thinkers. It discouraged study, stiffened 
reason in formulas and dissolved thinking in vision. To its 
formulas the Hill has been exceedingly devoted. He who 



114 QUAKER HII,L 

Upheld them was accepted, and he who rejected them, as well 
as he who ignored them, was to the early Quaker Hill as if 
he did not exist. 

This shibboleth has indeed always been religious. Even 
to-day the way of direct access to the common heart is a re- 
ligious one. Catholic as well as Protestant, Quaker no more 
and no less than "the world's people," welcome religious 
approaches, respect confessions, and believe experiences. Noth- 
ing can assemble them all which does not originate in religion 
and clothe itself in religious sanction. History is religious 
history. Business prosperity is approved when the prosperity 
has followed religious profession. 

I do not mean to say that there are not other symbols 
than those of religion. Prosperity has spoken its shibboleths 
as well as orthodoxy. "Business is business" on Quaker Hill. 
Not "to save money" is an unforgiven sin — and a rare one ! 

Much has been done in forming the common mind of 
Quaker Hill by antipathies and sympathies, chiefly again of 
a religious order modified by the economic. The community 
is markedly divided into rich and poor, and into orthodox and 
not-orthodox. These have no inclination one to another. Each 
group has its symbols and pass- words, and while neighborly, 
and answering to certain appeals to which the community has 
always responded, each resident of the Hill lives and dwells 
in his own group and has no expectation of moving out of it. 
So long as a man stays in his group he is, by a balancing of 
antipathy and sympathy, respected and valued. If he venture 
to be other than what he was born to be, he suffers all the 
social penalties of a highly organized community. 

Authority, working along the lines of belief and dogma, 
has almost irresistible force for the Quaker Hill social mind. 
A visitor to the Hill said "These are an obedient people." Any 
barrenness of the Hill is to be attributed rather to the lack 
of leaders who could speak to the beliefs and in harmony with 



ASSIMIIvATION OF STRANGERS II5 

the dogmas, than to lack of willingness to obey authority. 
From the past the families on the Hill inherit their willingness 
respectively to command and to obey. This is true socially 
of certain families and religiously of others. That to-day some 
are not led is due solely to the decadence of initiative in the 
households which, by reason of wealth or dogmatic rectitude, 
inherit and claim the first place. 

It was said above that Quaker Hill has shown great power 
of assimilating foreign material, and of causing newcomers to 
be possessed of the communal spirit. The agency which from 
the first accomplished this was religious idealization, em- 
bodied in the meeting, the dress, language and manners of 
Friends. Generally the Meeting was recruited from births, 
and members were such by birthright. In former times the 
community and the Meeting were one. This assimilating of 
foreign material by social imitation to the Quaker type, and 
into organic subjection to the Quaker Hill community, was 
wrought by six agencies. They were language, manners, 
costume, amusements, worship, and morals. In each of these 
the Quakers were peculiar. In the use of the "plain language" 
the Quakers had a machinery of amazing and subtle fasci- 
nation for holding the attention, purifying the speech, and 
disciplining the whole deportment of the young and the new- 
comer. No one has ever been addressed with the use of his 
first name by grave, sweet ladies and elderly saints, without 
its beginning an influence and exerting a charm he could not 
resist; the more so that the Quaker in so doing is guarding 
his own soul, rather than seeking to save his hearer. 

The grave manners of the Quakers, both in meeting and 
without, are framed upon their belief that all days are holy, 
and all places sacred. Their long and triumphant fight against 
amusements is a tribute to the gravity of life. The contest 
to which I have elsewhere referred for pure morals, in matters 
of sex, of property and of speech, was a victorious battle. 



Il6 QUAKER HII,L 

In all these matters Quaker Hill was a population social- 
ized by religion. Central to it all was the worship of the 
Meeting on First Day, and on other occasions ; and the great 
solemnity of the annual Quarterly Meeting. Fascinated by 
that "silence that can be felt," men came from far. They 
would come as readily to-day. They went away under the 
domination of that idea of pure and spiritual faith, which 
kept a whole housefull of men silent for an hour in communion. 

As I have looked into this matter it has seemed to me that 
the induction to be drawn from the history of Quaker Hill is 
this : Religion was a true organizing power for this social 
population. Whatever the meeting determinedly strove to do 
it accomplished. If it had tried to do more it would have 
succeeded. 

This was a gain, moreover, without corresponding losses ; 
a total net gain in all the moralities. The whole area on which 
this meeting exerted its influence was by it elevated to a 
higher moral and social tone, and organized into a communal 
whole, characterized by a loftier and cleaner standard than 
that of surrounding populations. 

Why, then, did it die out? First, because of the bareness 
of its worship, the lack of music, color and form; through 
which it lost in the nineteenth century some of its best 
families. Then through dogmatic differences, of no interest 
to human beings, it lost its primacy in the community and so 
its authority. 

In the chapter on "Ideals of the Quakers," I have dwelt 
upon their dramatization of life. They "made believe" that 
"plainness" was sanctity. They fixed their minds upon the 
commonplace as the ideal. It is probable that the early popu- 
lation were men and women of no such talents as to disturb 
this conviction ; and the variations from plainness in the direc- 
tion of gayety were sternly denounced as immoral. Also the 
struggle with the wilderness occupied and exhausted the 



ASSIMILATION OP STRANGERS 11/ 

powers of the exceptional as well as of the average man. But 
when with wealth came leisure, there were born sons of the 
Quakers who rebelled against the discipline of life that re- 
pressed variation, who demanded self-expression in dress, in 
language, in tastes, and in pleasures. Gradually but surely, 
as the outside world was brought nearer, these persons were 
influenced in their restiveness by books and examples, by imi- 
tation and other stimuli from new sources, until they cast off 
in their minds the Quaker ideal of plainness. To be ordinary 
no longer seemed to them a way of goodness. They were 
oppressed and stifled by the ban of the meeting upon vari- 
ation. And though the ideal of plainness has subtly ruled 
them even in their rebellion and freedom, it has done so by 
its negative power, in that the community has never furnished 
exceptional education. The positive dominion of the meeting 
broken, the negative "plainness" of the community rules all 
the children of the Hill to this day. So few are the sources 
of individual variation furnished, in the form of books, music, 
education, art, that no son or daughter of Quaker Hill has 
attained a place of note even in New York State. The ideal 
of "plainness" has been an effectual restraint. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE COMMON MIND. 

The common mind has been formed to a great degree by 
strong personalities; for the common mind has held an ideal 
of perfection in a person. The force which at the beginning 
assembled its elements was personal. The type represented 
by George Fox, as interpreted by Barclay, embodied this in- 
fluence. In all the history of the place response to strong 
personality has been immediate and general. The past is a 
history of names. William Russell led the community in 
erecting a Meeting House, and then a second one — which still 
stands. Ferriss, the early settler, located the meeting house on 
his land, as later Osborn located the Orthodox Meeting House, 
at the Division, on his land. Judge Daniel Akin, in the early 
Nineteenth Century, was a leader of the economic activities 
of this Quaker community, then differentiating themselves 
from the religious. So, too, his nephew, Albert Akin, in the last 
half of that century was a leader, gathering up the money of 
the wealthy farmers to invest in railroads, founding the Pawl- 
ing Bank, the Mizzen-Top Hotel, and launching Akin Hall, 
with its literary and religious basis. 

David Irish, the preacher of the Hicksite Meeting in the 
middle of the nineteenth century was leader and exponent 
of the most representative phases of Quakerism, for at that 
time it was still possible for the business and the religion of 
Quakerism to be united in the minds of the majority; Uni- 
tarian Quakerism was the result, and of this David Irish was 
the ideal embodiment. 

The respect paid by the community to leadership is shown in 
the place assigned to Admiral John L. Worden, commander of 
the "Monitor," who married a Quaker Hill woman, Olive 



THE COMMON MIND II9 

Toffey, spent the summers of his life on the Hill, and is 
buried in the Pawling Cemetery. There was universal pride 
in his charming personality, interest in his sayings, and no 
pious condemnation of his warlike deeds. His nautical names 
of the high points on the Hill have been generally accepted; 
so that the Hill rides high above all surrounding lands, her 
heights labelled like the masts of a gallant ship: "Mizzen- 
Top," "Main-Top," "Tip-Top." 

There is indeed by contrast a corresponding unwillingness 
to be impressed by great personality. The residence of Wash- 
ington with his troops in the neighborhood left no impression 
on the records of the Meeting, though he turned out the wor- 
shippers and filled the place with sick soldiers ; no impression 
upon the devout tradition, except the story of his being seen 
once in the woods alone on his knees in prayer ; and no impres- 
sion upon the social tradition, except the cherished claim of 
one family that he used their residence as his headquarters. 
Washington was the embodiment of all that this community op- 
posed, and he was ignored. 

Another instance of grudging allegiance was the following 
given to a New York broker, who set out to build a modem 
schoolhouse, and was permitted only by a packed school- 
meeting, and by paying two-thirds of the expense himself, to 
build in 1892 the comely structure at 43, with which Quaker 
Hill is content. 

The same resident was discouraged from further acts of 
public service, in 1894, by the declining of his offer made to 
the town of Pawling, to build one mile of macadam for every 
mile built by the town. He had constructed in 1893, at 113, a 
sample piece of such road, covering at his own expense an 
ancient sink-hole in the highway, through which during two 
months in every year for a century and a half Quaker Hill 
had wallowed ; and he desired with this object-lesson to con- 
vince the town, — to win the support of at least his neighbors, — 



I20 QUAKER HILL 

to the proposal to transform the highways into good roads. 
But there was never a response, and even his neighbors on 
the Hill, who cheerfully enjoy his smooth stretch of stone 
road over the ancient wallow of their fathers, manifested no 
active appreciation of his generosity. The generous resident 
had purchased a stone-crusher and other necessaries for the 
work; but they have been used only on private grounds. 

The most conspicuous instance of following leadership in 
recent times has been the measured devotion given by the 
community to the activities which have centered in Akin Hall 
and in the institution known as Hill Hope, on Site 35. The 
leaders in this activity have been themselves under the influ- 
ence of New York city ideas. Two of the three most con- 
spicuous persons are of this neighborhood, but have resided 
in New York for years, returning to the Hill for the simimers. 
The third is a New Yorker by birth, and trained in Presby- 
terian religious experience and especially in charitable activity 

Akin Hall has in the years 1892 -1905 expressed the lead- 
ership in religious confession and worship, after the forms of 
the Reformed Christian order, and has embodied this leader- 
ship in the conventional activities of a vigorous country parish. 

For ten years Hill Hope, supported personally by the third 
member of this group of leaders, was, until it was closed 
in 1904, a country home for working girls. By a liberal policy 
it became also a center of much interest and of a pervasive 
influence to the neighborhood. Meetings of a social and de- 
votional character were held there, to which the residents were 
pleased to come, and in which the young women from the city 
met and mingled with the Protestant residents of the Hill, 
especially with those of the Quaker stock. The influence of 
Hill Hope was very marked, and its power in representing to 
people of a narrow experience the ideals of a richer and 
broader life was obvious to any one who saw "the place it 
held in the interests of the whole resident community. 



the: common mind 121 

These influences, thus compounded of the humanitarian, 
the hberal-orthodox and the devotional, but in all things con- 
fessedly religious, exerted themselves for the ten years named, 
unbroken. The death of one member of this group of leaders, 
the head of one of the three households peculiarly identified 
with its work, appreciably weakened the group. But in 
the thirteen years of its influence, it united the whole com- 
munity in the formation of a church, to some of whose services 
came all the Protestant population ; in whose membership 
were representatives of all groups of the Protestant residents ; 
and which was able at least once a year to call the Catholics also 
together at Christmas festivities. 

To this group of leaders a guarded, though at times cor- 
dial following was given by Orthodox Friends, the Hicksite 
group, the farmer class, laborers. Catholics and Protestants, 
and summer people. It was generally inert and negative in 
spirit, seldom actively loyal. At its best it was willing that 
leaders should lead and pay the price, and be more admired 
than upheld. At its worst it was alert to private and blind 
to public interests, peevish of change, incapable of foresight. 

I do not think that Quaker Hill people have much expecta- 
tion of benefit from social life. They are habitually skeptical 
of its advantages, though eager to avail themselves of those 
advantages when proven. Almost every person on the Hill, 
however, is a member of some secret society, to which he is 
drawn by anticipations of economic advantage, or of moral 
culture. 

Nor can I say that there is prompt or general reaction 
to wrongdoing, either of one or of many. I might illustrate 
with two cases. In one a rich man perverted a public trust, 
openly, to his own advantage; and a conspiracy of silence 
hedged his wrong, about. In the other, a youth entered in one 
winter every house on the Hill in succession, and there was 
no one to detect or to punish him. 



122 QUAKER HILL 

The Hill does not exhibit the highest type of social response 
in the recognition of impersonal evil, in the quest of knowl- 
edge, or in free discussion. Almost two centuries of dogma- 
worship, with its contemplation of selected facts, has made it 
now impossible to secure from one thoroughly socialized in 
the spirit of the place the exact truth upon any matter. It 
seems to be reserve which conceals it, but it is rather the 
effect of continued perversion of the sense of right and wrong, 
and indifference to knowledge for its own sake. 

The ideal of the common mind of Quaker Hill is the prac- 
tice of inner and immaterial religion. It looks for the 
effects of certain dogmas, effects expressed in emotions, con- 
victions, experiences. The ideal contains no thought of the 
community or of its welfare. It is purely individual, internal 
and emotional. 

It was expressed in the comment of one excellent repre- 
sentative citizen upon another, "He does not seem to me to 
be the man he once was. He does not say in meetings the 
things he used to say. He used to be very helpful in his 
remarks." This was said at a time when the citizen com- 
mented on was laboring heroically for a public improvement 
by which the citizen speaking would chiefly be benefitted. 

The Quaker Hill man and woman desire to make money. 
They instinctively love money, though not for any other 
purpose than saving. They cherish no illusions of an un- 
worldly sort about it. This is true of Quaker and Catholic, 
laborer and summer resident. It is true of the small class 
of cultivated intellectual-aesthetes, who might be expected to 
be less mercenary. They all value money; but not for dis- 
play, not for luxury, scarcely for travel; not for books or the 
education of children. Quaker Hill men and women would 
accumulate money, invest and manage it wisely and live in 
respectable "plainness." This characteristic is written largely 
over the whole social area. It is an instinct. 



THE COMMON MIND I23 

The emotional nature of this population has been by long- 
continued application of an accepted discipline, economic and 
religious, restrained and schooled. More beautiful personali- 
ties than some of the Quaker and Irish women of the Hill, 
schooled in a discipline which produces the most charming 
manners, the gentlest kindness, one may never see. There is 
no cloud in the sky of these women's justice, truthfulness, 
goodness. One may remember, even with them, a day of 
anger, of indignation ; but it was a storm restrained ; the 
lightnings were held in sure hands, and the attack was emin- 
ently just. 

But this very discipline has resulted, in other persons, in 
an explosive emotionality. One person suffers this explosion 
in a periodic lawsuit — a rare action for the Hill; another in 
an almost insane family quarrel, another in an occasional 
fury of futile violence, another in periods, increasing in fre- 
quency as he grows older, of causeless and uncontrolled anger, 
or extravagant grief ; and when weightier occasion is lacking, 
in torrents of language poured forth from the treasuries of 
an exhaustless memory. The very serenity and placidity which 
Quaker worship and industry produce in the true Quaker 
have resulted in the emotional ruin of some, and in the sub- 
conscious volcanic state in others. 

Strange to say, the immigrants, Irish and American, have 
in this conformed to the better type; so that gentle manners, 
placidity of character and restraint of emotion may be said to 
prevail among them. 

As for judgment, on economic questions and matters of 
benevolence the judgment of Quaker Hill people is sound. 
They use money sanely and with wisdom. They act wisely 
in matters of poverty and need, or appeal on behalf of the de- 
pendent. On other matters, outside the range of the social 
discipline in which the community has been to school, not so 
much can be said. 



124 QUAKER HILL 

The judgment of the community is not determined by evi- 
dence in any other matters than economic. The Quaker Hill 
mind works subjectively on the lines of instincts and habits 
inherited and inbred. Auto-suggestion has been a great force 
in this community. Men and women have had an impression, 
"a leading," believed to come from the Divine Spirit, and have 
acted upon it and have led others with them. So that the 
prevailing determination of the social judgment has been 
by personal suggestion, and the appeal of inner convictions, 
fortified by alleged divine influence. It must be said that this 
is a disappearing habit. Even those born Quakers, now that 
the Hicksite Meeting has been discontinued since 1885, and 
the Orthodox since 1903, and the Quarterly Meetings of both 
societies have ceased to come to the Hill, do not so often see 
visions or act upon "leadings." The influence of non-Quakers 
in the place has been of late to quarantine such "leadings" and 
prevent social contagion. 

Frugality is universal. Almost every resident laboring 
man has a bank account. Indeed, these laborers have done 
more in saving than have the farmers. But the tastes of all 
are simple. Clothing is never showy or expensive, and house- 
keeping is carried on with the most sparing use of purchased 
articles. 

Cleanly most of the people of the Hill are, in person and 
in their care of house and grounds, of carriages, horses 
and other properties. The houses and barns are always 
freshly painted, and an appearance of neatness pervades the 
community. 

For reasons which I will mention in a later paragraph the 
men and women trained under Quakerism are not orderly, 
either in the use of their time or in the management of their 
labor, or in anything, save in the discipline of their religion 
and in the economic system to which they give themselves. 

The community has grown in compassion since the days 



THE COMMON MIND I25 

when Surgeon Fallon's soldiers were starved and neglected 
in the Meeting House. To-day I am sure no class of men in 
real need could appeal to the community, or to any constituent 
group of it, in vain. The growth has been along lines which, 
beginning in a group-compassion that has from earliest days 
recompensed any poor member of the Meeting in his sudden 
losses of property, have widened first to Quakers of other 
places, then to other Christians, then to other men, and last of 
all to Quakers of the other Quaker sect ; and from Protestant 
to Catholic and Catholic to Protestant. 

Property seems to be sacred. Doors of houses and barns 
do not require locks, but one winter there was a series of 
house-breakings, in which almost every summer residence on 
the Hill was entered. Contents were inspected, but nothing 
was stolen. But the honesty here is a passive honesty. It is 
not the aggressively just fulfilment of obligation which one 
finds in New England. 

The Hill is a community with a high level of chastity. 
This may be said of all classes, though not uniformly of all. 
Yet it was not always so. The first century of the life of the 
Quakers here is recorded in the minutes of Oblong Meeting 
as one long struggle of Quaker discipline against unchastity. 
There is an amazing frankness about these records, and a per- 
sistence in the exercise of discipline, a frequency of accusation, 
proof, conviction, expulsion from the Meeting, which is aston- 
ishing to the twentieth century reader. The best families fur- 
nished the culprits almost as often as they supplied the accusers 
and prosecuting committees. So many are the cases and so 
frequent the expulsions, often for matters which might better 
have been ignored, but generally for substantial offences, that 
one wonders who was left in the Meeting. But men often 
confessed and were received again, and the Meeting held its 
ground. In general it may be said that often in the eighteenth 
century there were more cases of unchastity dealt with in a 



126 QUAKER HILL 

year by the Meeting, in a population no larger than the pres- 
sent, than have come to public knowledge in the jjast ten years 
in this community. The change shows also in a reserve of 
speech upon these matters. 

The characteristic pleasures of the community, as a whole, 
are few. There is a group of women of leisure, of course, 
devoted to bridge-whist, who come in the summer and do not 
go far from the Hotel. Young men go hunting, and a few 
grown men are fond of fishing. The typical person provides 
himself with no pleasures outside of his family and home. 
Men and women are too busy to play, and the Quakers edu- 
cated themselves out of a playful mind. 

There are a few pleasures which are native and general. 
One of these is public assembly, with an entertaining speaker 
as a central pleasure. Quaker Hill audiences are alert and 
keen hearers, and indulgent critics of a public speaker. There 
are only two other forms of public entertainment more pleas- 
ing to them. The first is a dramatic presentation. Many of 
the Quakers are excellent actors, and the Irish are quite their 
equals, while the other newcomers are equally appreciative. 
The Christmas play in Akin Hall is a great annual event, as- 
sembling all the people on the Hill of all classes and groups, 
for it embodies very many of the appeals to characteristic 
pleasure. Only one other attraction is more generally re- 
sponded to ; I refer to a dinner. Something good to eat, in 
common with one's neighbors, in a place hallowed by historic 
associations, under religious auspices — here you have the call 
that brings Quaker Hill all together. On such a day there 
will be none left behind. 

Of all these sorts is the attraction the Quaker Hill Confer- 
ence has for the people of the neighborhood. It is a universal 
appeal to the capacity for pleasure in the community. It pre- 
sents famous and eloquent speakers through the days of the 
week. Matters of religion, farming, morals, literature, arc 



THE COMMON MIND I27 

discussed, by men of taste and culture; and the closing day is 
Quaker Hill Day. On this day, after an assembly in the old 
Oblong Meeting House, erected in 1764, at which the neigh- 
borhood has listened to papers descriptive of the past of the 
Hill, all adjourn for a generous dinner under the trees of Akin 
Hall, or latterly under a tent beside the Meeting House, 
partaken of by four hundred people, of all groups and 
classes, and followed by brisk, happy speeches by visitors 
present. This, after almost two centuries of keen interest in 
the question of amusements, is the last and most perfect ex- 
pression of the capacity for amusement in the community. 

Of active pleasure-taking, Quaker Hill, purely considered, 
is incapable. 

It should be said that the Roman Catholic Church in Pawl- 
ing provides its people with a yearly feast, parallel with the 
Conference, which was for years held in a grove on the bor- 
ders of Quaker Hill. 

Traits of character which are general or even common 
among Quaker Hill people are worthy of mention under the 
heads of regular industry, frugality, cleanliness, temperance, 
chastity, honesty as to property, and compassion. 

Politically the Hill was until the year 1896 inclined to be 
Democratic. For years a number of the Protestants on the 
Hill have been Prohibitionists. 

Primitive notions of morals survive in spite of what has 
been said earlier, in isolated instances, or tend to recur in 
certain families. Until twelve years ago members of certain 
families maintained the right to catch fish with a net in 
Hammersley Lake. Over the line in Connecticut this prac- 
tice, and that of taking fish with a spear, survive in spite of 
law. But this primitive method was forcibly ended by the 
attempt to arrest the chief offender. He made his escape 
from the officers, but has never returned, and the practice has 
not till this date, 1905, been resumed on Quaker Hill. 



128 QUAKER HILL 

Primitive moralities of sex appear in certain families^ 
in which in each generation there appears one illegitimate 
child, at least; as it were a reminder of their disorderly past. 
The chari-vari survives among the better class of working 
people, a strange, noisy outbreak for a Quaker community, 
with which a newly married pair are usually serenaded. 

I find also no animistic ideas, or practices; no folk-lore 
and no magic. The Quaker Hill imagination has been 
disciplined. 

The preferred attainment in this community is neither 
power, splendor, pleasure, nor ceremonial purity; nor yet jus- 
tice, liberty or enlightenment; but rather, first of all, pros- 
perity, a well-being in which one's good fortune sheds its 
favors on others; secondly, righteousness, to be enjoyed in 
religious complacency; and thirdly, equality. This last is one 
of the few elements of a social ideal actually realized. Even 
among the women of the place there is a simple and unaffected 
democracy in the religious and communal societies, which is 
quite unusual in such a place. 

Of sacred places there are avowedly none. But the his- 
toric sense of the community is reverent, almost religious, in 
its regard for the past; so that the Oblong Meeting House, 
cradle of the community, and for over a century its home and 
house of government, is chief in the affections of all. In the 
summer of 1904 this place was marked for all time by the 
placing there of a boulder of white feldspar, bearing a bronze 
tablet inscribed with the important facts of the history of 
that spot. 

Quaker Hill does not desire to expand. The type of com- 
munity preferred is the simple, small, and exclusive. In this 
all agree, whether they confess it or not. No expansion will 
ever come by native forces or conscious purpose. 

Quaker Hill reveres leaders, not heroes; and not saints, 
for men have been cherished for their leadership in dogmatic 



THE COMMON MIND. I29 

activities, rather than for their abstract goodness or human 
value. The type of the social mind that has been most es- 
teemed is the dogmatic-emotional. Even Albert J. Akin, 
whose dogma was the union of all Christians, had no patience 
with any divergence in religious experience from this, his 
dogma. 

The forms of complex activity that are chiefly cherished 
are, first, the economic arts ; second, religion ; third, morals ; 
and fourth, things pertaining to costume. The institutions 
chiefly prized are the family and marriage, the economic sys- 
tem and the cultural system, especially the church. 

Social welfare is conceived of under forms of peace, the 
increase and diffusion of wealth, industry, and by a minority, 
culture. High morality is most valued as an element in the 
social personality. Next after it is a highly developed sociality. 
Social policies would be favored on the Hill as they represented 
authority and individualism. Conversion is the accepted means 
of modifying type. 

Practical politics may be said to be foreign to Quaker Hill, 
for reasons drawn from its isolation and religious offishness. 
An exception was in the early part of the nineteenth century, 
when Daniel Akin, apparently in consequence of mercantile 
position, was elected County Judge. After him, his brother 
Albro was appointed to the office. 

The consciousness of kind on Quaker Hill is stronger in 
the group than in the community. Yet the general sense of 
"unity" is very strong and it often comes into play. 

The chief social bonds which unite the whole community 
are, first of all, imitation, in which process it seems to me the 
Quakers are a peculiarly subtle people. Second, a good-will 
which pervades the Hill like a genial atmosphere; Third, 
kindness, which on certain occasions draws the whole com- 
munity together in unusual acts of helpfulness to some member 
in need. 



CHAPTER V. 

FRACTICAI, DIFFERENCES AND RESEMBLANCES. 

The prevailing type of mind among Quaker Hill folk is 
the Ideo-Emotional ; for these folk are a gentle, social sort of 
persons, ready of affection, imaginative and analogical in men- 
tal process, weak and complacent in emotionality, with motor 
reaction rather inconstant, and of slow response. Of these I 
find thirty-seven families. 

The next category is that of the Dogmatic-Emotional, 
in which I observe twenty-two families. These are composed 
of persons in whom austere and domineeringg character pro- 
ceeds from a dogmatic fixity of mind, and expresses itself in 
the same inconstant application shown by the former class. 

A few of the more notable of the personalities produced by 
Quaker birth and breeding belong, I think, in the Ideo-Motor 
class. I find only seven families of that type, but the forceful 
character, of aggressive bent, moderate intellect and strong but 
well-controlled emotion, is distinctly present ; and this class has 
furnished some of the most successful of the sons of Quaker 
Hill. 

I have known only six persons resident on the Hill in the 
twelve years under study who could be described as Critically- 
Intellectual. Of these, four have been bred in the larger 
school of the city, and only two have lived their lives upon 
the Hill. Of these six, five are women. 

There is, of course, only one language spoken n Quaker 
Hill. Indeed only one or two persons have any other than Eng- 
lish as their native tongue.* And very few have acquired any 
other as a matter of culture. The vocabulary used is limited. 
An intelligent observer says : "The vocabulary of the native 
community is the meagerest I have ever known, except that of 

• In 1905-7 six Swedes and Poles also have come, as laborers. 



DIFFERENCES AND RESEMBLANCES. I3I 

the immigrant." There are, however, very few illiterates; 
none, indeed, in the literal meaning of the term. 

Manners on the whole are uniform for the resident popu- 
lation. Of course the summer people have the conventional 
manners, or lack of manners, of the city. So far as religion 
has shaped the manners of the old Quaker group, they are 
often gentle and refined; but as often blunt and imperious. 
The Irish have the best manners, I observe, and the more 
transient summer people and farm-hands the worst. In both 
the last two classes there is too often a pride in rudeness and 
vulgarity which the native of mature years never exhibits. 
The Quaker and the Catholic are equally ceremonious in in- 
clination. The latter always desires to please. The Quaker, 
when he desires to please, is capable of very fine courtesy; 
but he does not always desire, and he has less insight into the 
essence of a social situation. 

The community has had a history, of course, in the matter 
of costume. The Meeting House law made costume a matter 
of ethics for a century. But to-day there is great diversity. 
Probably this is a sign of the transition from the Quaker to the 
broader human order. But all one can say upon costume is 
that there is now no dress prescribed for any occasion. At 
one extreme there are a few, in 1905 only three, in 1907 only 
one, who wear the Quaker garb. At the other extreme are 
outsiders who dress as the city tailor and milliner clothe them. 
And between these there is liberty. 

The dispositions again are varied. One finds the aggres- 
siveness of five stirring men and three capable women suffi- 
cient to give character to the place. Many functions of the 
community are still vigorously upheld, yet the number of ag- 
gressive spirits is diminishing. The instigative type is present 
in three, and its processes give pleasure to all who behold. 
The domineering type is present in eight members, especially 
in those faniilies which claim by right of inheritance either 



132 QUAKER HILL 

social or religious leadership. And, as to others, as I quoted 
an observer above, "They are an obedient people." I do not 
know any creative minds, much less any class vi^ith original 
initiative. If there had been any such, Quaker Hill would have 
produced artists, great and small, and writers, not a few. 
There is a consciousness of material for creation, and in cer- 
tain families the culture which creation presupposes ; but some- 
thing in Quakerism has quieted the muse and banked the fires. 

As to types of character, there are forceful persons, a very 
few, nine at the utmost being of this type. Austere persons, 
who have in the past given to the Hill much of its character, 
have almost disappeared, not more than four being within 
that category, among the population under study in this part 
of the book. 

The number of the rationally conscientions is as small as is 
that of the convivial. The Meeting, which was for over a 
century the organ of conscience for the community, denied to 
the convivial their license, and released the conscientious from 
any obligation to be rational. The Meeting has now but re- 
cently passed away, and its standards of character speak as 
loudly as ever. I find three women who may be called ration- 
ally conscientious, one a Quakeress, one a New Yorker, and 
one of Quaker birth and worldly breeding. I find also three 
who are truly convivial in type, one a son of Quakers, and 
two who are Irish Catholics; while to these might be added 
two whose designation ought to be Industrious-Convivial, 
hard-working men who are fond of social pleasure as an end 
of Hfe. 

A few in certain households, three in number, are intel- 
lectually aesthetic in a passive way, fond of art and books, but 
creating nothing. Two artists of note have in the past twelve 
years come to the Hill, bought places and made it at least a 
summer home. 

It must not be inferred from the foregoing that there is 



differe;nces and resembi^ances. 133 

not a wide range of mental difference among Quaker Hill 
men and women. In the matter of quickness and slowness 
of action this variation appears even among the members of 
any one group. In the same family are two brothers, both 
farmers, both tenants. One is able to farm a thousand acres 
more successfully than the other can cultivate two hundred. 
The one is instant in judgment, swift in action, able to com- 
press into an hour heavy physical labor and also the control 
of many other men. The other is leisurely, indolent in move- 
ment, though a diligent man, and is as much burdened by 
increase of responsibilities as the former is stimulated. These 
two men are not exceptional, but typical. The extreme of 
slowness is indeed represented in one man whose tortoise pace 
in all matters dependent on the mind and will is oddly con- 
trasted with his vigor and energy of manner. His movements 
are a provocation of delighted comments by his neighbors; 
I think partly because they are felt to be representative of 
what is latent in other men, and partly because he is sur- 
rounded by others more alert. Such men are the outcrop- 
ping of a vein of degenerate will. It is not immoral degener- 
acy, but its weakness is incapacity for action of any kind, 
inability to see and do the specific task. This degenerate will 
does not extend to traditional morals, and does not always 
affect whole families. But its pervasive effects are seen in 
almost all the representatives of three large families of the 
old Quaker stock. Contrasted to these are some of the old 
stock, who though slow of thought and barren of mental 
initiative, are swift of action, sure in synthesis of a situation, 
and instant in performance of precisely the requisite deed. 

One finds on the Hill many examples of native administra- 
tive ability of a high order — for a farm is as complicated a 
property as a railway is. There are fully as many others who 
would be burdened with the cares of a ticket-chopper. 

Not a few on the Hill are like the farmer who, sent on an 



134 QUAKER HILL 

errand to bring some guests from a train to a certain house, 
spent half an hour after meeting the guests in conversation 
with them in the railway station before mentioning his errand ; 
and would have made it an hour had they not inquired of him 
for a conveyance. Yet a neighbor of his, in the same social 
group, closely related, has unusual capacity for aflFairs. 

The instincts of the people of the Hill are not, I think, 
so varied. They involuntarily respect religion, when ex- 
pressed with sincerity, and incarnated in strength of character. 
It must have the authority, however, of strength, at least 
passive strength, to appeal to local instinct. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION. 

The members of the community have organized themselves 
into associations for the carrying on of special forms of activity 
to a degree which is worthy of record. As one might expect, 
the societies of most vigor are those maintained by the women, 
since the men have never been able spontaneously to organize, 
or to maintain, any society on the Hill. 

Central to all this organization, through the period of the 
Mixed Community, has been Akin Hall Association, created 
by one man, and endowed by him. Under its shelter a church 
and library live, and a yearly Conference is maintained for 
five days in the month of September. In this chapter we 
will consider first the incorporated, then the unincorporated 
societies. 

The chief incorporated institution on Quaker Hill is Akin 
Hall Association, founded in 1880 by Albert J. Akin. It was 
his intention to create an institution of the broadest purpose, 
through which could be carried on activities of a religious, 
literary, educational, benevolent and generally helpful order. 
"Albert Akin endowed," said a visitor, "not a college or a 
hospital, but a community!" The charter of the Association, 
which was from time to time, on advice, amended, up to the 
time of Mr. Akin's death in 1903, provided for the most 
catholic endowment of Quaker Hill, in every possible need of 
its population. 

The particular directions in which this endowment has been 
used are two. A library and a church are in active use by the 
neighborhood, the former since 1883, and the latter since 1895, 
of which I will speak in detail hereafter. 

Akin Hall Association is a corporation consisting of five 



136 QUAKER HILL 

trustees, a self-perpetuating body, and eleven other "members." 
The number of trustees was originally sixteen, but Mr. Akin 
early yielded to legal advice in concentrating authority in five 
persons ; while continuing the remaining eleven as a quasi- 
public to whom the five report their doings, and with whom 
they regularly confer. The annual meeting of the Association 
is upon the birthday of the founder, August 14th. At that 
time the trustees assemble at two p. m. for the transaction of 
business, election of members and of officers; and at 3 p. m. 
the members' meeting is called to order, the officers of the 
trustees being officers of the whole body. Members are per- 
mitted and expected to inquire as to activities of the Associa- 
tion, its funds and its work in general, and to vote on all mat- 
ters coming before the body for its action. Only no action in- 
volving the expenditure of money, or the election of trustees, 
shall be valid without the concurrence in majority opinion of 
a majority of the trustees. 

The chief interest of the trustees has always been the care 
of the property of the Association, which includes invested 
funds, and the following buildings, with about thirty acres of 
land: a hotel, having rooms for two hundred guests, a stone 
library, a chapel, and seven cottages. The hotel is usually 
rented to a "proprietor," and the duties of the library and 
church are laid upon a minister, the earliest of whom, Mr. 
Chas. Ryder, was called the "Agent." 

The Akin Free Library, consisting of about three thousand 
books, selected with uncommon wisdom by committees of ladies 
through about twenty-five years, was originally established 
by the ladies of the Hill, in the early eighties, through a popular 
fund. It has ever since been funded by the Akin Hall Associa- 
tion, who have also given it quarters, and care, in the Chapel 
known as Akin Hall. It will soon be moved into the stone 
Library, erected in 1898, but only finished in 1906, and it is 
reasonable to suppose that it will there have a wider scope 
and an increasing use. 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 1 37 

The Library has been managed primarily for the use of 
^'the Summer people," and the books have the excellence of 
their selection, as well as the proportion of certain kinds of 
books, determined by the preferences of the Summer residents. 
No adequate records are kept of the books used ; so that it is 
impossible to give statistics of the specific utility of the library. 
But it occupies a real place in the community, and is drawn 
upon by families from every section of the population. 

The fact that it was originally assembled by popular sub- 
scription, and only later sustained by the Akin endowment is 
a token of the exceptional latent interest in literature, and the 
passive culture, to which tribute has been paid in this study 
of the Quaker Hill population. It is fair to say, however, that 
such interest has been confined to a small group of the popu- 
lation, now fast disappearing. 

There is a small corporation, formed for the purpose of 
holding and caring for the "Old Meeting House." It is known 
as Oblong Meeting House, Incorporated. To this corporation, 
consisting of three trustees, a self-perpetuating body, the 
Yearly Meeting of Friends* handed over in 1902 the building 
and grounds known as the "Old Meeting House," at Site 28. 
This ancient building, erected in 1764, is probably the oldest 
edifice on the Hill, and is the embodiment of the religious and 
historical traditions of the community. These trustees attend 
to the repair of the Meeting House, which is maintained in 
exactly the condition in which it was used for over a century. 
No meeting of worship is held now in this building, the 
"monthly meeting" having been "laid down" in 1885. The 
building is, however, the center of frequent pilgrimages during 
the summer, by the visitors to the Hill and boarders, who 
delight in its quaint interior. It is used for occasional "sales" 
for the "benefit" of some public interest. Once a year at the 

• The "Hicksite or Unitarian body held possession of the Meeting House in 
i8a8, and until the above action. 



138 QUAKER HILL 

close of Quaker Hill Conference, it is the place of "Quaker Hill 
Day" exercises, at which addresses and papers are presented, in 
celebration and commemoration of the past history of the 
community. 

The Hill has record of few revivals. Quaker ways pre- 
clude surprises, and revivals usually arise from new things. 
There was, however, during five years, 1892 — 1897, a religious 
awakening, prolonged month after month, for five years with 
undiminished force. The cause of it seems to have been the 
study of the Bible in the historic method ; a new mode of 
awakening traditional religious interest. During that time the 
whole community was keenly alive, old and young ; and in 
certain cases a change of life became permanent. In many 
young persons a definite religious impulse was the result. 

This quickened religious interest involved all the Quaker 
influence, both Orthodox and Hicksite, and it was reinforced 
by several strong personalities from outside the Hill, persons 
trained in church work in New York and elsewhere. It crys- 
tallized in the organization of "Christ's Church, Quaker Hill," 
in the Spring of 1895, which received at the beginning ad- 
herents of all the religious groups represented on the Hill. 
Within three years it had grown to a membership of sixty- 
five, among whom were members or adherents of the follow- 
ing religious bodies, Protestant Episcopal Church, Anglican 
and Roman Catholic Churches, Quakers, Hicksite and Ortho- 
dox, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist Episcopal, Congrega- 
tional, Disciples and Lutheran. 

This church is served by the minister employed in Akin 
Hall, and it has therefore a peculiar place. Its membership 
is drawn from the population resident on the Hill. Its doc- 
trinal truths are simple, namely the Apostles' Creed. Its 
ordnances are elastic, baptism being waived in the case of 
those who, being trained as Quakers, do not believe in water 
baptism ; and by the conditions affixed to Mr. Akin's endow- 



SOCIAL ORGANIZATION 1 39 

ment, that no denominational use should ever be made of Akin 
Hall, it is without sectarian connections. 

The religious services in Akin Hall have in Summer been 
attended since 1880 by numbers of "summer people," from 
Mizzen-Top Hotel and the boarding-houses. A Sunday School 
was maintained from 1890 to 1905, a Christian Endeavor So- 
ciety from 1894 to 1903. Both have been discontinued, owing 
to lack of members. 

The church has also a diminished membership, especially 
since 1903, owing in part to mere removal of population ; and 
even more to the death and removal from the Hill of persons 
of forceful, aggressive type, and the impoverishment of the 
population in respect of initiative and coherence. 

The other agency carried on under the patronage of Akin 
Hall Association is the Quaker Hill Conference. Founded in 
1899 by Mr. Akin, entertained by Miss Monahan, this assembly 
has made September of each year a focal point in local interest. 
For five days of public meetings, Bible study, addresses upon 
religion, social and economic topics, culminating in a great 
dinner, of which four hundred partake, it is the modern suc- 
cessor of the now extinct Quaker Quarterly meetings. It ex- 
pended in 1907 about $1,400, of which about half was con- 
tributed by Akin Hall Association, and the remainder by 
individuals. 

The groups in which the women of the Hill are associated 
are of great interest. The Roman Catholic women have only 
their kinship associations, and no voluntary associations, being 
generally in the employ of Protestants, and having their church 
center away from the Hill in Pawling village. 

The King's Daughters is the largest association, and most 
representative of the Hill, both in its numbers, frequency of 
meetings and variety of interests ; though it is not the oldest. 
It has a membership of forty, and is actively devotional, chari- 
table and benevolent. It serves also a useful purpose in pro- 



I40 QUAKER HILIv 

viding social meetings, bazaars, sales and other occasions 
throughout the year which bring neighbors together ; and uses 
their assembling for the assisting of the poor, ignorant or 
needy. 

This society, as well as the one to be mentioned next, ex- 
emplifies the real democracy in which the women of the Hill 
meet and plan for common local interests; a fine spirit and 
practical efficiency characterizing their meetings, and each 
woman, however, humble, having a part with the best in the 
general result. 

The Wayside Path Association is smaller in number of 
members, as well as older than the King's Daughters ; indeed, 
it has perhaps no fixed membership, but is an assembling of 
the women of the place about a small group as a working 
center for a yearly duty. Its purpose is to maintain a dirt 
sidewalk, over three miles in length, which follows the road 
northward and southward, from the Glen to the Post Office, 
with branches. Once a year the Association meets, gathers 
funds by a "sale" or by subscription, hires a laborer to repair 
the Wayside Path ; then for a year lies dormant. In 1898 there 
was a general effort made to transform this association into 
a general Village Improvement Society, with diversified inter- 
ests, into which men would come, but it failed, and no such 
society exists. 

The West Mountain Mission is an association of ladies of 
the Hill, who through sales and bazaars, supplemented by 
gifts, contribute to the support of a chapel of the Protestant 
Episcopal Church, two miles west of Pawling. This associa- 
tion draws its membership from the hotel guests and from 
residents in the cottages; and but little from the essential 
Quaker Hill households. 

The same may be said of whist clubs maintained in the 
summer at the hotel and cottages. 



CHAPTER VII. 

THE SOCIAL WELFARE. 

Quaker Hill is an example of the working of a religious 
and economic system toward its inevitable results in social 
welfare. The results consciously sought were mainly personal. 
They were not seeking culture or security or equity, and not 
attempting to create a community, those early Quakers; but 
they sought with all their heart and mind after prosperity, 
individual and communal; after vitality, morality and that 
self-expression which is in the form of self-sacrifice or altru- 
ism in "the service of others." The conscious mind of the 
Quaker fathers of this community was other-worldly, except 
in the matters of business — of which more later. That "spir- 
itual" state of mind was intensely individual. All the interests 
it regarded were of the self, conceived as an inner, immaterial 
duplicate of the body, destined for heaven after death, and 
now enjoying interchanges of experience, especially of emotion 
and intelligence, with the Deity, during life. 

It was a mind consciously framed to serve personal devel- 
opment, with no thought of public or common interests. Yet 
subconsciously the Quaker was acutely aware of common in- 
terests. A Quaker frequently uses the expression "I feel 
myself in unity with them." Their doctrine of the indwelling 
of the divine in every man made them, quick to feel common 
emotion. Their group-sympathy was lively and strong. They 
felt the community, though they never thought upon it. Sub- 
consciously, though not consciously, they were public-spirited. 
They acted upon a fine social spirit, thought they taught no 
social gospel. 

"The supreme result of efficient organization,"* says Pro- 

* Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 541. 



142 QUAKER HILL 

fessor F. H. Giddings, "and the supreme test of efficiency is 
the development of the personality of the social man. If the 
man himself becomes less social, less rational, less manly; if 
he falls from the highest type, which seeks self-realization 
through a critical intelligence and emotional control, to one 
of those lower types which manifest only the primitive virtues 
of power; if he becomes unsocial, the social organization, what- 
ever its apparent merits, is failing to achieve its supreme ob- 
ject. If, on the contrary, the man is becoming ever better as 
a human being, more rational, more sympathetic, with an ever 
broadening consciousness of kind, then, whatever its apparent 
defects, the social organization is sound and efficient." Let 
us consider whether Quaker Hill has met this test. It has 
been well organized. It has had definite purposes. What has 
been the type of welfare enjoyed as a result? What kind of 
man has emerged from almost two centuries of cultivation of 
a religious and economic ideal? 

In economic operations the Quakers dwelt in this world. 
They sought a living and they sought wealth — not for the ser- 
vices wealth can render in culture and education, but to 
accumulate it, possess it, invest and manage it, and to live "in 
plainness." 

Yet they subconsciously did also seek after a prosperity 
that should be general. Not closely, not in any declarations 
or definite teachings of their code, but still in a real way, as 
a by-product of their code of life, they acted so that none in 
their community should be in want. This they did with pro- 
found wisdom — for they taught no communal doctrine — and 
the details of their action toward weaker members of the 
neighborhood were uncommonly shrewd and sensible. I will 
show later the effects of this in the fact that the population 
under our study shows the absense of defective classes in a 
significant degree. There are no idiots, no defective, no crim- 
inal, no pauper classes among the Quaker Hill ix)pulation. 



SOCIAI, WEI^FARE 143 

The mind of the community had, indeed, an active interest 
in Hberty and the contribution noted above (see Ch. IV. Part I) 
in the agitation for the aboHtion of slavery in this state was 
an act of public spirit along the lines of a great national expe- 
rience. The fact that the meeting of Friends in 1767 was held 
on Quaker Hill, which initiated effective action against slave- 
holding, is much cherished on the Hill, and is commemorated 
in a stone and bronze memorial at the Meeting House. 

Equality of suffrage and universal suffrage are jealously 
believed in, owing to the Quaker teaching as to woman's 
parity with man. Yet in the school-meeting, in which women 
have the same right to vote that men have, there are seldom 
any women present. Indeed, except for a packed meeting once 
in a decade, to decide some agitated question, few men attend 
school-meetings. 

The size of the holdings of land on the Hill, and the curve 
of increase and decrease for seventy years, are exhibited in 
Table II. 

TABLE II. 

Land-Holdings on Quaker Hill: Acreages on which Owners 

are taxed. 



Years 


.1835 1845 1865 


1875 


1890 


1900 


1906 


No. Owners.. 


,..31 26 39 


51 


48 


53 


42 



HighestAcreage6io 540 445 420 540 540 540 
Higher Quartile 378 

Average 222 

Median 187 

Lower Quartile 80 
Lowest Acerage i 

The above table gives in a graphic manner the tendency 
of wealth to increase, on the Hill, so far as wealth is repre- 
sented in land. It is to be noted that these figures, taken from 



260 


225 


225 


183.5 


222.5 


265 


206 


150.5 


147.8 


137-8 


154 


184.2 


150 


131 


120 


104 


120 


155-5 


100 


59 


52 


43-5 


57 


90 


42 


3 


6 


5 


I 


6 



144 QUAKER HILL 

the Tax-Lists of the town of PawHng, are not precisely accur- 
ate, especially in the lower ranges. There is an evident inac- 
curacy in the reporting of the smaller places. Yet from them 
the following may be inferred : First, that from the beginning 
of the repords, which was about the end of the period of the 
Quaker Community, there was a shrinkage in the size of the 
land-holdings on the Hill; and from the beginning of the 
period of the Mixed Community a rise in the general averages, 
the lowest of the curve is about 1890, in the Median, the aver- 
age and in each of the quartiles. Second, the incoming of the 
Irish immigrants, who began to be land-holders about 1850, 
multiplied the number of small holdings of land. 

Just what cause has operated in the years 1890- 1906 to 
increase the size of the holdings of land it is hard to say, unless 
it be the expectation that land would have a value, which is 
aroused by the presence on the Hill every summer of visitors 
to a number equal to the numbers of the resident population. 
It is evident at the present time, when the "milk business" 
has been reduced to half in the past five years, that the farmers 
are holding their lands with a hope of selling. 

It is worthy of remark that the tax-list of the town furnish 
no other data of reliable value, or even of suggestion, being 
obviously inaccurate and uneven in their reports of the values 
of land, and of the holdings of personal property. 

The fact that is not recorded in the above statistics is this : 
that certain owners, associated in close family ties, own all the 
land of greatest value. Seven family groups possess, in the 
names of eleven of the above owners, all the land near the 
Hotel, all the land for which any one has ever thought of 
charging more than fifty dollars an acre. These eleven owners 
of all the land of greatest value possess probably nine-tenths 
of the personal property. 

Holdings of property on Quaker Hill are very unequal. 
The smallest owner of real estate has an acre, and the largest 



SOCIAL WElvFARE 145 

about six hundred acres. Contrasts here are sharp and per- 
manent. The same famihes have possessed certain properties 
for many decades, often for two centuries; and generally 
Quaker Hill families do not sell till they all die or move away. 

Wealth is increasing on Quaker Hill in the slow course 
of years, and probably along the lines of present growth, will 
increase. It is distributed with marked inequality. The tend- 
ency, especially in central territory, is toward increasing 
inequality. There is "a. small group at a high degree." 

Yet the community is generally prosperous and well-to-do. 
There are none poor. Indeed, the wealthy women who began 
to come to Mizzen-Top Hotel in 1880, looking about for some 
poor to assist, were obliged to go off the Hill to the south, 
and lay hold of a lonely female with a curious nervous malady 
but self-respecting withal, and deliberately pauperize her. To 
this process, after some initial struggles, she has submitted 
through these intervening years. She has now tor years been 
pensioned by the church in Akin Hall through the year, visited 
in summer by people in carriages, has maintained an extensive 
begging correspondence through the mails all winter, and has 
been generally despised by her neighbors. But she has repre- 
sented to interested clergymen and charity workers on their 
summer vacations the fascinating and mysterious problem of 
poverty.* 

Very few indeed have been the defectives. I know of none 
in ten years. The prevailing vitality of the community is high. 
There were living two years ago five persons past ninety; 
and one of them died in his hundredth year. Octogenarians 
drive the roads every day, and manage their estates with ripe 
discretion and unabated interest in affairs. The religious re- 
vival referred to (see Chapter VI) brought into the church 
an active man of great wealth of ninety-five years of age. 

There are no blind persons. One old man, who suffered 

• S. p. died 1906. 



146 QUAKER HILL, 

from cataract, lost an eye in an operation at eighty-five years 
of age ; and refused to submit the other eye-ball to the surgeon. 
There are no deaf and dumb. 

People on Quaker Hill are well-born. I suppose this may 
be in part due to the high morality of their fathers. I attribute 
it, in view of the contrast in this respect to the contiguous 
population in Sherman, Conn., to the highly organic com- 
munal life of Quaker Hill. Connecticut people, some of them 
of the same original Quaker stock, have settled on small hold- 
ings of lands, and held them till isolation and poverty have 
driven them to suicide, insanity or other miseries. Quaker 
Hill was from the beginning differentiated into a healthier 
diversity, and it has been the better for her people. 

There are few mentally abnormal persons in the com- 
munity. One may designate three persons as unbalanced, two 
of them unmarried women ; and another such as probably in- 
sane, though residing at home. But even the aged do not die 
first in the head. There are no idiotic persons. 

The prevaiHng morality is high. Very few would be 
classified as immoral, by the public disapproval of their con- 
duct. Individuals have committed theft, or an act of cruelty, 
or adultery, in the years 1895- 1905. They do not constitute 
classes. 

The sociality of Quaker Hill seems to the writer relatively 
high. Response to a case of real need is prompt, wise and 
abundant ; and common action for others is heartily begun and 
completed. There are no unsocialized persons ; neither paupers, 
criminals, nor degraded, in the community; at least no class 
or classes of such. There is a man who perhaps drinks too 
much and too often ; but even he is too far from the saloon to 
attain to the dignity of neighborhood drunkard. 

Quaker Hill has not been of a mind to contribute insti- 
tutions or resources to the public. Toward war hostile, toward 



SOCIAL WELFARE I47 

the state always impassive, sometimes actively disloyal in times 
of war, Quaker Hill has lived a life apart. 

Common school privileges are offered to all in the three 
school houses at Sites 12, 43 and loi (school districts No. 
I, 3, 4) and the advantages offered are generally studiously 
appropriated by the young. In the ten years under study two 
famiHes alone have been unwilling to take full advantage of 
the school opportunities. 

In the school at Site 43, for which alone an improved, 
modern building has been erected, there was, beginning in 
1893, a determined effort made to provide a school better than 
the ordinary country school. By the co-operation of certain 
farmers with children in school, and through contributions of 
citizens of means who had no children, better teachers were 
employed, at increased expense, for the space of twelve years. 
During two years the school was graded, employing two 
teachers. But the effort in this direction seems to have ceased 
with the close of the year 1905- 1906. This school has had, 
for the years 1904-6, only one Protestant child, in an enroll- 
ment of twenty to thirty. 

The other school-districts are maintained "in the old back- 
country way," their attendance is small and no effort is made 
to raise the standard of teaching. 

It has been accepted for generations among the authorita- 
tive leaders on Quaker Hill that "higher education was not 
good for the poor." Of this doctrine, Albert Akin, generally 
progressive, was a firm believer. He insisted, and other repre- 
sentatives of the leading families have done the same, that "to 
offer them higher education only makes them discontented"; 
"they won't work if you get them to studying — and somebody 
must do the work." 

It seems in strict harmony with this opinion, which I never 
heard opposed on the Hill, that Quaker Hill has never until 
1904 sent a young man or woman through the college or uni- 



148 QUAKER HIIvL 

versity. Albert J. Akin, 2d, was a member of class of 1904 
of Columbia University, but he was not born on the Hill, and 
never long resided there. Indeed, the town of Pawling has 
not another college graduate among its sons. There have, 
been, however, a few who have gone to school to the grade 
of high school and no normal schools. In the past ten years 
ten young men and women have done so. One youth all but 
completed a college course in 1906. Two young women are 
just completing courses as nurses. 

Personality is the field in which the conscious purpose 
cherished on Quaker Hill would have wrought its best 
efforts. But personality was always on Quaker Hill inhibited, 
restrained and schooled into mediocrity. Variation was re- 
pressed. Spontaneity was forbidden. Ingenuous spirits were 
firmly and effectively directed into channels believed to be 
harmless. 

The result has been that mediocre people have both lived 
on the Hill, and gone away from it, in voluntary exile from 
its beautiful scenes, but not in exile from its spirit of plain- 
ness. No person of brilliant mind or of uncommon talents 
has ever come of the Quaker Hill population. There is not 
among the sons or daughters of this place one whose name is 
of lasting interest to any beyond the limits of Pawling. No 
artist or poet has ever ventured to express the intense feeling 
of the aesthetic which pervades the place, but has always been 
hushed from singing, restrained from picturing. 

I think the end for which the Quaker Hill population have 
lived could be called Individual-Social. They are consciously 
individual, and unconsciously, inevitably social. These people 
have sought generation after generation for personal salvation 
and personal gain. "And that," says a resident, "that is why 
the place is dying." Yet the common interest was a logical 
correllary of the Quaker doctrine of God in every man, and 
therefore a community was formed, a community indeed 
which was no one's conscious care. In the chapter upon 



SOCIAI, WELFARE I49 

"The Common Mind," above, I have showed that all the 
leaders of the community as a whole, save one, have been 
outsiders, who came to see the integrity of the community 
with eyes of "the world's people," and these leaders in com- 
munal service have been grudgingly followed. 

That one, Albert J. Akin, who founded Akin Hall Asso- 
ciation, lived away from Quaker Hill, in New York City, the 
most of the months of fifty years, 1830- 1880, and fell under 
the influence of outsiders.* 

Indeed, a rare beauty characterizes these children of the old 
Quaker Community; and a fine harmony blends the members 
of the Mixed Community into one another. The type of 
country gentleman and lady was perfectly embodied in James 

• An analysis of the sources of Mr. Akin's leadership, written for the Memo- 
rial Service after his death in 1903, is of interest here, as showing the influence of 
persons upon him who were not of Quaker Hill ancestry or of Quaker breeding: 

"In all the years he lived on the Hill he had to do with every movement and 
was in touch with every person on the Hill. He made himself a party to every 
public interest. »/hen the building of the Hotel was suggested, he put himself at 
the head of the movement, invested the most mony in it, and later obtaining entire 
control, deeded it to his Akin Hall foundation. When the library enterprise was 
broached, which has grown into Akin Free Library, he organized and incorporated 
the institution required, endowed it generously; later reorganized it, upon legal 
advice; thus accepting ideas from Admiral Worden, William B. Wheeler, Cyrus 
Swan, Judge Barnard, and others of his neighbors, and contributing his own patient 
and unflagging executive faculty. When it was thought best, in 1892, to continue 
the church services throughout the winter under the leadership of Mrs. Wheeler 
and of Miss Monohan, and the growth of the Sunday school and permanent con- 
gregation seemed to require the employment of a resident pastor, Mr. Akin ac- 
quiesced; at first as a follower, but steadily and increasingly as a leader, he identi- 
fied himself more and more every year until his death, with the religious life of 
Akin Hall and Christ's Church. He was a good leader, for he confessed himself 
a follower in the enterprise which he was in a position absolutely to control. He 
eagerly availed himself of the suggestions of others, took a quiet and lowly place 
with entire dignity, and exerted without arbitrariness a determining influence. 

"When Mr. Akn was about sixty years of age, he bought a residence in New 
York, and went there to live in the winters. He had as a neighbor a Quaker 
preacher named Wright, who was accustomed to come to Oblong Meeting in the 
course of the year. With him Mr. Akin had many conversations on matters of 
duty and worship. 

"He began also to attend the Oblong Meeting in the summer, though the Sun- 
day meetings were not at that time largely attended. 

"Later when his residence was at Fifty-sixth Street he became the fast 
friend and devoted admirer of Dr. John Hall, who used often to call upon him. 
For years Mr. Akin was carried into Dr. Hall's Church; but after Dr. Hall died, 
and even before, he had ceasd from that custom. 

"The growth of the church on Quaker Hill, under the leadership of Mr. and 
Mrs. VV'illiam B. Wheeler and Miss Margaret B. Monahan took strong hold on Mr. 
Akin's heart, and exerted over no one a more vital influence than on this old man." 
—Albert J. Akin— A Tribute, by Rev. Warren H. Wilson, Quaker Hill Confer- 
ence, 1903. 



150 QUAKER HILL 

J. Vanderburgh, who died about 1889, in his residence at Site 
30. He was a good man, hospitable, large-minded, well read, 
humane ; he was sufficiently reverent to be good neighbor to 
the Orthodox; and he was sufficiently wealthy to express the 
Quaker economic ideal. He had the Quaker genius of thrift 
expressing itself in bounty. 

Mrs. Zayde Akin Bancroft, resident at Site 32, who died 
in 1896, was an example of the ideal Quaker Hill lady. A 
woman of leisure and culture, accustomed to the possession of 
wealth, and enjoying it in books and travel, she surrounded 
herself for several of her last years with an atmosphere, and 
secured for herself enjoyment, of the highest aspirations of the 
Quaker Hill economic ideal. 

No one quite so much embodied that ideal as Albert J. 
Akin, who died in his hundredth year, in January, 1903. His 
fortune, which amounted at his death to more than two million 
dollars, was the culmination of the wealth of his family, ac- 
quired since his great-great-grandfather, David Akin, tha 
pioneer, came to Quaker Hill about 1730. He was a far- 
seeing and brilliant investor, and through his long business 
life, which lasted until 1901, he followed the growth of rail- 
roads in the United States with steady optimism, and almost 
unvarying profit. After the year 1880 he came to live on 
Quaker Hill, in the interest of his health, more constantly 
than he had in the preceding fifty years. He at once interested 
himself in local enterprises, and Akin Hall Association and 
Mizzen-Top Hotel were at that time founded by him and 
others. Until his death, twenty-three years later, he was the 
leading citizen and the most interesting personality among this 
social population. Such was his place and so masterful as well 
as constructive his influence that it was a true expression of 
the feeling of all which one resident wrote at that time to 
another: "The king is dead, the man on whom we uncon- 
sciously leaned and whom none of us thought of disobeying. 



SOCIAI, WELFARE 151 

though only his personality held us to allegiance, is gone from 
us. And I for one feel that I have lost a dear friend." 

These three illustrations will serve to indicate both the 
kind of persons who have come of the Quaker Hill community, 
and one of its tendencies. They illustrate also the spirit of the 
community toward its leaders. 

Personalities of the austere type, men and women of the 
devotional side of Quakerism, may be cited in the cases of 
*David Irish and tRichard T. Osborn. The former was the 
last minister of the Hicksite Society of Friends on the Hill. 
His preaching covered the years of its separate existence, for 
he was made a minister in 1831, three years after the Divi- 
sion, and he died in 1884, at the age of ninety-two. One 
year after his death the Meeting was formally "laid down," 
in Oblong Meeting House, and from a place of worship it 
became a house of memories. 

David Irish was austere. Believing that slavery was 
wrong, "he made his protest against slavery by abstaining, so 
far as possible, from the use of slave-products , . made 

maple to take the place of cane sugar, and used nothing but 
linen and woolen clothing (largely home-spun). This ab- 
staining he continued for himself and family until slavery 
was abolished." Yet "he never felt free," continues his 
daughter and biographer, "to join with anti-slavery societies 
outside his own, believing that by so doing he might com- 
promise some of his testimonies." He welcomed in his home 
the fugitive slave fleeing from the South, and "there must 
never be any distinction made in the family on account of his 
color ; he sat at the same table and was treated as an equal." 
David Irish was equally opposed to war, and to capital 



• David Iriih— A Memoir, by Mri. Phoebe T. Wanzer, Quaker Hill Confer- 

e, 1902. 
t Richard Osl 
Conference, 1903. 



t Richard Osborn— A Reminiscence, by Mtrgtret B. Hontban, Quaker HiO 



152 QUAKER HILL 

punishment. He wrote, "testified" and "suffered" for these 
principles. "In the time of the Civil War he allowed his cattle 
to be sold by the tax-collector, not feeling free to pay the 
direct war-tax." His biographer enumerates further his hos- 
pitality, his fondness for books, his humor, and mentions with 
a pride characteristic of the Quaker that he "was often en- 
trusted with the settlement of estates, showing the esteem in 
which his business capacity and integrity were held by the 
community." 

Richard T. Osborn was the Elder of the Orthodox branch 
of the Friends during the same period, subsequent to the 
Division, as that covered by David Irish's life. Born in 1816, 
he was conversant as a child with the period of the Division. 
The seceding members of the Meeting met in his father's 
house and barn until the Orthodox Meeting House could be 
erected on the land upon which, at his marriage in 1842, he 
erected his house. Richard Osborn was "the head of his 
family." Strong of will, austere, convinced, he lived in the 
world of Robert Barclay and William Penn, and for years 
never hesitated to rebuke young or old Quakers or "world's 
people," whom he found violating "the principles of truth." A 
summer boarder who played a violin upon his premises was 
silenced, and the singing of a hymn in the Meeting House of 
which he was Clerk was once sternly "testified against." 

But Richard Osborn was kindly. He had a gentle and 
appreciative humor; and about 1890 there come influences in 
the presence of neighbors to whom he was strongly drawn, 
as well as the constant presence in his house of boarders from 
New York; so that his later years were spent in a mellower 
interest in dogma, and an ever keener interest in the history 
of Quakerism and of the community in which he lived. His 
wife, Roby, was a Quakeress of rare sweetness and exquisite 
gentleness of character. Together this strong, dominating 
man and his gentle wife constituted an influence, while they 



SOCIAL WELFARE 1 53 

lived, which held the community together, and disseminated 
their principles more successfully than if he had been eloquent, 
instead of terse, and she an evangelist instead of a meek and 
demure Quakeress. 

These persons were conspicuous examples of the best social 
product of Quaker Hill. They were not famous, nor great. 
Their philosophy was one of self-repression and required them 
to reduce their lives and those of other men to mediocrity. 
Quaker Hill taught and practiced the prevention of pauperism 
— and the prevention of genius ! The ideals of the place dis- 
couraged higher education. The leading personages distinctly 
opposed the offer of higher education to the young. 

Therefore this community, which has been exceptionally 
wealthy for one hundred and fifty years, has done nothing for 
general education; and has not educated its own sons. As 
noted above, no person born on Quaker Hill ever completed 
the courses for a degree in college or university, and though 
the community has had for a century families with aesthetic 
and literary tastes, no member of the community has painted 
a picture, written a song, or published a book. 

The personages briefly described above are named for an- 
other reason. Their deaths, with the deaths of certain others 
whom they represent, have brought to an end the period of 
Quaker Hill's history which I have called "The Mixed Com- 
munity." The others who with them made up this group were 
Jedediah and Phoebe Irish Wanzer, Anne Hayes, Olive Toffey 
Worden, and six other persons still living, of whom four are 
past eighty years and two are very near one hundred years of 
age. This group of persons were the center of that Mixed 
Community. They possessed the actual authority which this 
population always has required m its leaders. The piety, the 
austerity, the forcefulness, the ownership of the land of great- 
est value, and even the available wealth of the community, 
were so largely possessed by this group that in the years 



154 QUAKER HILL 

1 890- 1 900, in which this group was still intact, its leadership 
was such as to unite the community and consolidate the whole 
population for whatever interests the leaders of this group 
approved. Of that period it was said : "Everybody on Quaker 
Hill goes to everything !" 

With the death of those who have passed away in the 
latter part of the period under study the power of initiative 
has gone. New proposals are hushed. Variation is discour- 
aged; the rut of custom and convention is preferred. And a 
subtle stifling air of the impossibility of all active purposes 
pervades social and religious and business activity on the Hill. 

Religiously speaking, attendance upon public services have 
decreased by twenty per cent., while the Protestant population 
has only decreased five per cent. 

In business activity reference is made above to the fact that 
the number of milk dairies has decreased from eighteen to 
nine, a decrease of fifty per cent. At the same time the largest 
dairy on the Hill which in the decade 1890-1900 "was milking 
one hundred cows," has for the years 1903- 1907 "made milk" 
from only forty and fifty cows, although the owner has more 
land than his predecessor. 

The population which now remains on Quaker Hill con- 
tains only a few persons of force and leadership, and they 
are no longer so grouped as to command. The majority have 
no ability to follow unless authority be an element in the lead- 
ership; and authority to command the whole community has 
not existed since 1903. "The king is dead." 



Part IV. 

Appendices: Original Family and Church Records. 

APPENDIX A. 

A List of the Heads of Families in the Verge of our Monthly 
Meeting held on the Oblong and in the Nine-Partners Circularly taken 
in the 3 mo. 1760. (This date should be 1761. The Monthly Meeting 
directed the list to be made 4, 16, 1761.*) 



1st At New Milford 

Dobson Wheeler and his Wife 
Aaron Benedick and his Wife 
Joseph Ferriss 
Gains Talcott 
James McKenney 
Lydia Norton 
Anna Philips 

2d At Oblong 

John Bull and his Wife 
Wing Kelley and his Wife 
Oliver Tyron and his Wife 
John Wing and his Wife 
John Hoag ye 2d and Wife 
Benjam Hoag and his Wife 
Abner Hoag and Wife 
Philip Allen and Wife 
Moses Hoag and Wife 
George Soule and Wife 
Wm. Russell and Wife 
David Hoag and Wife 
Ebenezer Peaslee and Wife 
Nehemiah Merritt and Wife 
Nehemiah Merritt Jur. and Wife 
Elijah Doty and Wife 
Henry Chase and Wife 
Abraham Chase and Wife 
Benjam Ferriss and Wife 
Timothy Dakin and Wife 
Elisha Akin's Children 
Reed Ferriss and Wife 
Zebulon Ferriss and Wife 
John Hoag, Senr. and Wife 
John Hoag, Jur. and Wife 
Jedidiah Wing and Wife 
Josiah Akin and Wife 



Stephen Hoag and Wife 
James Hunt and Wife 
Prince Howland and Wife 
Isaac Haviland and Wife 
Nathn. Birdsall and Wife 
Nathn. Birdsall, Jun. and Wife 
Daniel Chase and Wife 
Edward Wing and Wife 
Abraham Wing and Wife 
Israel Howland and Wife 
David Akin and Wife 
Jonathan Akin and Wife 
Joseph Jinnins and Wife 
Robert Whitely and Wife 
Nathanael Stevenson 
Joseph Hoag 
Abraham Thomas 
Isaac Bull 
Patience Akin 
Desire Chase 
Mary Allen, Widdow 
Mersey Fish 
Margaret Akin 
Margery Woolman 
Dinah Gifford, Widdow 
Elizab Hunt, Widdow 
Abigail GiflFord 
Phebe Boudy 
Ann Hepbern 
Sarah Davis 
Ann Corban 
Hannah Birdsall 

3dly At Nine Partners 

Peter Hallock and Wife 
Moses Haight and Wife 
Aaron Haight and Wife 



* Correction of date is by John Cox, Jr., the Librarian of the Yearly 
Meeting of the Society of Friends, 315 Rutherford Place; in whose 
charge is the original. 



156 



QUAKER HILL 



Joshua Haight and Wife 
George Soule and Wife 
William Palmer and Wife 
Reuben Palmer and Wife 
Nehemiah Reynolds and Wife 
Peter Palmer and Wife 
Aaron Vail and Wife 
Joseph Haight and Wife 
John Lapham and Wife 
Jonathan Holmes and Wife 
Jonathan Hoag and Wife 
Israel Devil and his Wife 
John Kees and Wife 
Nathaniel Brown and Wife 
Anthony Arnold and Wife 
Caleb Norton and Wife 
Micah Griffin and Wife 
Jacob Haight and Wife 
John Haight and Wife 
Stephen Haight and Wife 
Micah Palmer and Wife 
Andrew White and Wife 
Stephen Hicks and Wife 
Daniel Tobias and Wife 
Ezekiel Hoag and Wife 
William Haight 
Joseph Reynolds 
Obadiah Griffin 
Solomon Haight 
Ben jam White 
John Hallock 
David Arnold 
Nathan Bull 
Hannah Thorn 
Hannah Tripp 
Margaret Allen 
Rose Barton 
Sarah Collins 
Bersheba Southerlin 
Sarah Jacocks 

Additional names which occur in the minutes of Oblong Meeting, 
in the years 1742-1780 (obviously an incomplete list of members) : 

Akin, Nathan Fields Chase, Johnan 

Akin, James Chase, Phynehas 

Akin, Timothy Clement, James 

Birdsall, Timothy Comstock, Thomas 

Briggs, Zebedy Dakin, Preserved 

Brundige, Edward Dickerson, Isaac 

Bunker, Annie Dickerson, Henry 



Ruth Mabbit 

Patience Green 

4thly At Oswegoe 

Samuel Dorland and Wife 

Richard Smith and Wife 

Joseph Smith and Wife 

Samuel Hall and Wife 

Allen Moore and Wife 

John Thomas and Wife 

Lot Tripp and Wife 

Ebenezer Shearman and Wife 

Joshua Sherman and Wife 

Daniel Shepherd and Wife 

John Thomas and Wife 

Josiah Bull 

Zebulon Hoxsie 

Ichabod Bowerman 

David Irish 

Andrew Moore 

Joseph Waters 

Eliah Youmans 

Othniel Allen 

John Carman 

Jesse Irish 

Deborah Reed 

Martha Gifford 

Abigail Adams 

Mary Moore 

Catharine Leaven 

Mary Youman 

Mehetable Devil 

Sthly At Peach Ponds 

Samuel Field and Wife 
Elias Palmer and Wife 
David Palmer and Wife 
Samuel Coe and wife 
Stephen Field and Wife 
Solomon Field and Wife 



HEADS OF FAMILIES 



157 



Mehitable Devil, Devill, Duvall 

or Deucll 
Franklin, Thomas 
Falyer, Abraham 
Haviland, Daniel 
Haviland, Benjamin 
Hoag, Enoch 
Hoag, Samuel 
Hall, Joseph 
Hunt, Josiah 
Irish, Joseph 
Irish, Jessee 
Jenkns, Volunteer 
Lancester, Aaron 
Lester, Murray 
Laurelson, Aaron 
Mosher, Wm. 
Moore, Allen 
Norton, Robert 



Osbom, Paul 
Osborn, Isaac 
Peckham, Jos. 
Sherman, Joshua 
Smith, Denten 
Shove, Edwrard 
Stedwell, Roger 
Sweet, Elnathan 
Benony Sweet 
Taber, Jeremiah, 

married Delilah Russell 
Wanzer, Moses 
Wing, William 
Wing, Elisabeth 
Wing, Daniel 
Whiteley, Pardon 
Wood, Drusilla, 

married Israel Howland of 
Purchase. 



158 



QUAKER HILL 



APPENDIX B. 

The following are the names of those who had accounts at the store 
of Daniel Merritt, on Quaker Hill, in 1771, as the names appear in his 
Ledger : 



Akin, John, Esq. 
Akin, David, Jr. 
Akin, Thomas 
Allen, Mary 

George's mother 
Akin, James 
Akin, Josiah 
Akin, Elisha 
Akin, Stephen 
Akin, Jonathan 
Akin, Abraham 
Akin, Timothy 
Allen, Ephraim 
Allen, Alexander 
Allen, Moses 
Allen, Samuel 
Allen, Thomas 
Allen, George 
Allen, Daniel 
Allen John, Elisha's son 
Allen, John Taylor 
Allen, Elizabeth, widow 
Allen, Mary 

Elisha's mother 
Allen, Mary 

Elisha's daughter 
Allen, Elisha 

Allen, Sarah, George's wife 
Ashby, Anthony 
Arnold, Joseph 
Arle, Nath., II 
Ackley, David 
Arle, Rebecca 
Andras, Thaddeus 
Alderman, Elisha 
Arnold, Nathaniel 
Briggs, Edward 
Briggs, Jeremiah 
Briggs, William 
Briggs, Henry 
Briggs, Elkanah 
Briggs, Phoebe, widow 
Briggs, Zepheniah 
Briggs, Edward, Junr. 



Briggs, Jeremiah 
Briggs, Thomas, Senr. 
Briggs, Prince 
Briggs, Thoms, Junr. 
Briggs, Anthony 
Briggs, John 
Birdsall, Nathan 
Birdsall, Nathan, Junr. 
Birdsall, James 
Birdsall, Thomas 
Birdsall, Benjamin 
Birdsall, Lemuel 
Bennet, Benj., of Patent 
Brownson, Libe 
Bostwick, Daniel. 
Boult, John, Senr. 
Barnum, Timothy 
Benedic, Aron 
Bowdish, Nathaniel 
Buck, Lydeal, Junr. 
Bostwick, Daniel, Junr. 
Brown, John 
Bennet, Benjamin 
Barnum, David 
Buck, David 
Betts, William 
Birdsley, Johiel. 
Beardsley, Josiah 
Barnum, Zadoc 
Burret, Daniel 
Barley, Abigail 
Boult, John, Junr. 
Billings, Increase 
Brush, Thos., Esq. 
Bosworth, Nathanael 
Beach, David 
Bump, Stephen 
Bowdy, Nathanael 
Bennet, Henry 
Brush, Thomas, Junr. 
Beardsley, Nehemiah 
Boom, Sarah 
Burdick, Ephraim 
Brown, Joseph 



RESIDENTS, 1 770- 1 77 1 



159 



Burtch, Nathanael 

Bull, Abraham 

Brownell, William 

Barlow, David 

Bass, Thomas 

Burrett, Israel 

Burtch, Increase 

Birchard, Jonathan 

Beers, James 

Brayton, Gideon 

Burdick, Nathan 

Brady. William 

Bostwick, Ichabod 

Botheford, Joel 

Bowdy, Moses, Junr. 

Bennet, Richard 

Bush, John Newfair 

Bostwick, Amos 

Benson, Benj. 

Bull, Isaac, junr. 

Barley, Daniel 

Brownson, Peter 

Bennet, Amos 

Birdsall, Lemuel 

Brown, Wm., schoolmaster 

Burdick, Jessee 

Brownin, Benj. 

Benedic, Abner 

Bracket, John 

Bull, Thomas 

Butler, Nathanael 

Butler, Truelove 

Buck, John. 

Bacon, Wm. 

Bradshaw, James H. 

Beardsley, Elihu 

Brownen, Wm. 

Batchford, Jonathan 

Batchford, Joel 

Brown, Wm. (Dover) 

Buck, Isaac 

Buck, Lydeal 

Burten, Oliver 

Bump, George 

Bowdy, Moses, Junr. 

Barnes, James 

Burteh, Jonathan 

Bennet, David 

Beemus, Thomas 

Brownson, Sarah 



Burtch, Jonathan, 2nd 

constable 
Burtch, Isaiah 
Bostwick, Robert 
Burdick, Robert 
Burdick, Ephraim 
Bangs, John 
Bruce, James 
Chase, Daniel, Sent. 
Chase, Daniel, Junr. 
Calkin, Elijah 
Close, Reuben, Senr. 
Close, Reuben, Junr. 
Church, Ebenezer 

hat maker 
Congo, Joseph 
Chase, Henry 
Chase, Benjamin 
Corbin, Peter 
Covel, Micajah 
Cook, Thomas, laborer 
Camp, Enos 
Croch, Widow 
Campbell, Archabel 
Chase, Joseph 
Chase, John 
Chase, Nathan 
Caswell, John 
Clarke, Richard 
Conger, Jessee 
Conger, Joel 
Campbell, Dunkin 
Corbin, Sarah 
Conger, Joel 
Close, Gideon 
Corbin, Thomas, Junr. 
Cary, Rhoda 
Chase, Benj., Junr. 
Caswell, Reuben 
Collins, Amos 
Covel, Zacheus 
Caswell, Amey 
Carey, Lucy 
Caswell, Robert, Senr. 
Caswell, Robert, Junr. 
Cary, Nathan 
Cary, Rhoda 
Crowfoot, Gideon 
Covel, Seth 
Chase, Stephen 



i6o 



QUAKER HILL 



Coller, Elisha 

Calkin, David 

Chase, Phinehas, Junr. 

Curtis, John 

Cook, Abial 

Chamberlin, John 

Chase, Elizabeth, widow 

Cummins, Isaac 

Calkin, John Doet, doctor 

Canfield, Zarobabel 

Crouch, William 

Churchel, Joseph 

Collins, Caleb 

Calkin, Simon 

Calkin, Nathaniel 

Cary, Lemuel 

Corbin, Thomas, Senr. 

Corbin, Sarah, widow 

Cummins, John 

Caswell, Robert 

Crane, Daniel 

Caswell, Nathan 

Coon, Matthew 

Chase, Abner 

Cummins, John 

Ten Mile Hills 
Calkin, James 
Dakin, Thomas 
Deaveal, Joseph 
Dakin, Ruth 
Dakin, Timothy 
Dakin, Preserved 
Dakin, Wooster 
Dakin, Mercy 
Dakin, Simon 
Deaveal, Phillip 
Deaveal, George 
Deaveal, Hannah 
Deaveal, Benj., Junr. 
Deavil, Jonathan 
Deaveal, Abigail 
Deaveal, Michael 
Deaveal, Benj., Senr. 
Deaveal, John 
Deaveal, Abraham 
Doty, Elijah 
Dunk, Thomas 
Darling, Ebenezer, Junr. 
Dutton, Joel 
Dowglass, Thomas, Senr. 



Dowglass, Thomas, Junr. 
Dowglass, Jonathan 
Daviss, Paul 
Dowgleess, Dominy 
Daviss, Henry 
Daviss, Deliverance 
Daviss, Wm. 
Daviss, Benjamin 
Deen, Samuel 
Drinkwater, George 
Dolph, Edward 
Dwalfe, Ezra 
Dubois, Matthew 
Evens, John 
Elliott, David, Senr. 
Elliott, David 

Newfairfield 
Elliott, Benj., Senr. 
Eliott, Benj., Junr. 
Elliott, John 
Elliott, David, Junr. 
Elliott, Jonathan 
Elliott, Daniel 
Edwards, Talmage 
Eastman, Joseph 
Eastman, Benjamin 
Eastman, Azariah 
Eastman, Azariah 
Eldeston, Joseph 
Eastman, Hezekiah 
Evens, Thomas 
Eady, Joshua 
Ellwell, Sam. Sen 
Eldridge, Elisha 
Ferriss, Benj., Senr. 
Ferriss, Benj., Junr. 
Ferriss, Benj., 3rd 
Ferriss, Zebulon 
Ferriss, Joseph, Junr. 
Ferriss, Matthew 
Ferriss, Zachariah 
Ferriss, Zebulon 
Ferriss, Gilbert 
Ferriss, Reed 
Ferriss, David 
Field, John 
Field, Samuel 
Finch, Reed 
Finch, Ebenezer 
Flint, Asa 



RESIDENTS, 1 770- 1 771 



161 



Franklin, Walter 
Franklin, John 
Fisher, Nathaniel 
Foster, Josiah 
Fuller, Jonathan 
Fairchild, Eleazer 
Fairchild, Alexander 
Giddings, Joseph 
Giddings, Jonathan 
Giddings, Zebulon 
Gregory, Samuel 
Gregory, Ralph 
Gregory, Rivevias 
Gregory, Jeremiah 
Graves, Jedediah 
Graves, Russell 
GiflFord, Benj., Senr. 
Giflford, Benj., Junr. 
Gifford, Gideon 
GiflFord, Joseph 
Gaylord, Ebenezer 
Gaylord, Benjamin 
Gaylard, William 

Gaylard, Aaron 

Gaylard, Phebe 

Griflftn, Phillip 

Gillet, Hezekiah 

Gourham, Ichabod 

Garlick, Reed 

Gray, William 

Garrett, Thomas 

Green, David 

Halavi'ay, John 

Halaway, William 

Howland, Azariah 

Howland, William 

Howland, Israel 

Howland, Prince 

Howland, Nathaniel 

Howland, Sarah 

Howland, Charles 

Howland, Cook 

Howland, Nathaniel. Junr. 

Howland, Peleg 

Howland, Samuel 

Howland, John 

Howland, Silvey 

Howland, Anne 

Hunt, William 

Hunt, Samuel, farmer 



Hunt, Stephen 
Hunt, Elizabeth 
Hunt, Abel 
Hunt, Daniel, Junr. 
Hunt, Timothy 
Hunt, Daniel, Senr. 
Hall, James 
Hall, Lewis 
Hitchcock, John 
Herrington, Moses 
Hatch, Maltier 
Hatch, Benj. 
Holister, Nathaniel 
Holister, Abel 
Holister, Jonathan 
Howard, Edward 
Howard, Edward, Junr. 
Howard, Stephen 
Howard, John 
Hoag, Lydia 

Benj. daughter 
Hoag, Amos 

Hoag, David, Junr., carter 
Hoag, Abner, 2 
Hoag, Samuel 
Hoag, John, merchant 
Hoag, Abner, i 

Hoag, William, carter 

Hoag, Timothy 

Hoag, Elijah 

Hoag, Abigail 

Hoag, Stephen 

Hoag, Joseph 

Hoag, John, merchant 

Hoag, John, ist 

Hoag, John, 2nd 

Hoag, John, 5th 

Hoag, Ruth S., daughter 

Hoag, Enoch 

Hoag, Peter 

Hoag, Elisha 

Hoag, Sarah N. 

Benj. daughter 

Hoag, Ebenezer 

Hoag, Abbigail 

Hoag, Wm., Joseph's son 

Hoag, David, Senr. 

Hoag, John, D. son 

Hoag, Daniel 

Hoag, Paul 



l62 



QUAKER HII^I, 



Hoag, Tabithy 
Hammond, Jonathan 
Hammond, William 
Hammond, Samuel 
Hammond, Jonathan, Junr. 
Hammond, Benj., cooper 
Hammond, Mary 
Hammond, Elizabeth 
Happern, Anne 
Happem, George 
Hubbell, Gaylard 
Hubbell, Dennis 
Hubbell, Shadrick 
Hubbell, John 
Hubbell, Ephraim 
Hubbell, Eleazer 
Hubbell, Gideon 
Holdridge, Thomas 
Hungerford, Josiah 
Hungerford, Thomas 
Hungerford, Samuel 
Hungerford, Miriam 
Hurd, David, tailor 
Hurd, George, doctor 
Hurd, William 
Howard, Ruth 
Hill, Anne 
Hill, George 
Hill, Henry 
Hill, John 
Hill, Stephen 
Haviland, Dan 
Hill, Caleb, carter 
Haviland, Isaac 
Haviland, Susannah 
Haviland, Solomon 
Haviland, Mary 
Haviland, Joseph 
Haviland, John 
Haviland, Stephen 
Haviland, James 
Holaway, Joseph 
Haviland, Roger 
Haviland, Benj. 
Haviland, Jacob 
Hull, Daniel 
Hains, Solomon 
Hadden, Bartholemew 
Hendrick, John 
Haws, Edmund 



Hilks, Edmund 
Holmes, Thadford 
Hollister, Joseph 
Halms, Thadford 
Hart, Lydia 
Hatfield, Barns 
Hicks, John 
Hicks, Benjamin 
Hawley, Isaac 
Hillerd, Nathan 
Handy, Jude 
Irish, Joseph, farmer 
Irish, Isaac 
Irish, John 
Irish, Jedediah, Senr. 
Irish, Jedediah, Junr. 
Ingersol, Daniel 
Ingersoll, Josiah 
Jewett, Jedediah 
Jewit, Aaron 
Jewit, Isaac 
Johnson, John 
Johnson, Sabin 
Jeflfers, Robert 
John, June, Jr. 
Joyce, John 
Kelly, Wing 
Keeler, Ezra, carter 
Kaysson, James, 

wheelwright 
Kane, John, merchant 
Ketcham, Elihu 
Kent, Seth 
Knapp, Moses 
Knapp, Moses 
Lake, Thomas 
Lake, Judah 
Lake, Thomas, Junr. 
Loveless, Joseph 
Lee, John 
Lee, Asahel 
Lee, John, Jr. 
Leach, Ebenezer 
Leach, Ephraim 
Leach, John 
Leach, James 
Leach, Ichabod 
Leach, Miriam 
Lee, Catherine 
Leach, Simeon 



RESIDENTS, I77O-I77I 



163 



Leach, Amos 
Leonard, Moses 
Leonard, Isaac 
Leonard, David 
Luddington, Henry 
Langdon, John 
Lester, Murray 
Lewis, Sam. 
Lamphire, Jessee 
Lamphire, Elisha 
Lamphere, John 
Lowrey, John 
Lancaster, Aaron 
Lum, Samuel 
Lacey, Seth 
Loveless, Joseph 
Martin, Aggrippa 
Martin, Ephraim 
Marten, Manasah 
Martin, James 
Mosher, Benj. 
Mosher, Daniel 
Mosher, Lavinia 
Mosher, Jonathan 
Mosher, Hannah 
Mosher, Mary 
Millerd, Phebe 
Millerd, Joshua 
Millard, Joshua 
Millerd, Jonathan 
Millerd, John Phillips 
Millerd, Robert, Jr. 
Millerd, Jacob 
Menzies, Thomas 
Morgan, Joseph 
Menzies, Alexander 
Menzies, Thomas 
Morgan, Consider 
Miles, Sam. 
Marsh, John 
Marsh, Elihu 
Marsh, Eunice 
Morison, Malcum 
Marsh, Samuel 
Munroe, Sam., Jr 
Munroe, Nathan 
Mead, Daniel, Jr. 
Mead, Jessee 
Man, Sam. 
Man, Dependence 



Merritt, Nehemiah, Jr. 
Millerd, Benajah 
Munroe, Daniel 
Morehouse, John 
Mead, Daniel, Senr. 
Malary, Caleb 
McHerty, Mancey 
Marsey, Ebenezer 
Milk, Job 
McMan, Cornelius 
Noble, Asahel 
Northrop, Amos 
Northrop, Abraham 
Northrop, Salmon 
Northrop, Amos, Jr. 
Northrop, Johannah 
Northrop, Moses 
Northrop, Thomas 
Northrop, David 
Noble, Zadoc 
Noble, Thaddeus 
Noble, Stephen 
Noble, Morgan 
Noble, David 
Noble, Gideon 
Negro, Sip, slave 
Negro, Tone, slave 
Negro, Kajah, slave 
Negro, Jethro, slave 
Nicholas, Rowland 
Nicholas, John 
Nicherson, Seth 
Nickerson, Seth, Jr. 
Norton, Rowland 
Norton, Lydia 
Neerings, John 
Odle, Daniel 
Osborn, Jonathan, Senr. 
Osborn, Paul, potter 
Osborn, Isaac 
Osborn, Jonathan, Jr. 
Osborn, Amos, potter 
Osborn, Aaron 
Osborn, Stephen 
Price, John 
Peasely, Ebenezer 
Picket, Benjamin 
Pickett, Ebenezer 
Peasely, John 
Peasely, Isaac 



164 



QUAKER HILL 



Potter, James 
Potter, William 
Potter, Judah 
Pepper, Stephen 
Parce, Jonathan 
Perce, Wni. 
Pepper, John, Jr. 
Pepper, John 
Page, Jonathan, Senr. 
Page, John 
Page, William 
Page, Lydia 
Page, Sarah 
Prindle, Aaron 
Prindle, David 
Prindle, John 
Prindle, Gideon 
Prince, Job 
Parks, Whiten 
Parks, Richard 
Pendegrass, William 
Perry, Sam. 
Perry, Rowland 
Prindle, Dan, Jr. 
Peasely, John 
Prindle, Samuel 
Pourham, John 
Perry, John 
Perry, George 
Parks, Daniel 
Penfield, Peter 
Piatt, Samuel 
Penny, Ammial 
Phillips, Samuel 
Patterson, James 
Patterson, Andrew 
Penny, William 
Phillips, Mifford, Jr. 
Pennen, Wright 
Patterson, Alexander 
Palmer, Phinehas 
Putnicholos, Nathan 
Porter, Joshua 
Phelps, Barney 
Phelps, William 
Peek, Phinehas 
Peek, Samuel 
Prosper, Ichabod 
Palmeter, Silvenus 
Pearce, Nathan, Esq. 



Precinct by 

Andrew Morehouse 
Quinby, Ephraim 
Russell, Elihu 
Russell, William 
Russell, Margaret 
Russell, Samuel 
Russell, Elizabeth 
Ross, Zebulon 
Ross, Daniel 
Ross, Zebulon, Jr. 
Ross, Matthias 
Ross, Hugh 
Richardson, William 
Rennolds, Jeremiah 
Ruggals, Lois 
Ruggals, Joseph 
Rundle, Joseph, Senr. 
Stephens, Thomas 
Stevens, Benj. 
Stephens, Joseph 
Shaw, Phallice 
Shaw, Joseph 
Shaw, Benannuel, farmer 
Shaw, Benj. 
Stewart, Lemuel 
Stewart, James, Jr. 
Stewart, James, Senr. 
Stewart, Alexander 
Stewart, Alexander, 2nd 
Stewart, Samuel 
Stewart, Nathaniel 
Sweet, Ezekiel 
Sweet, Charles 
Sweet, Benedic 
Scribner, Abel 
Scribner, Abraham 
Springer, Richard 
Springer, John 
Scribner, Zadoc 
Springer, Elizabeth 
Sherwood, Daniel 
Stephens, William 
Sherwood, Nathan 
Stevens, William, Jr. 

carter 
Stillson, Nathan 
Stillson, Enoch 
Stillson, Moses 
Stillson, John 



RESIDENTS, 1 770- 1 77 1 



165 



Smith, Mary 
Smith, John 
Smith, Daniel 
Sprague, John 
Stevens, Peter 
Smith, Richard 
Soule, George 
Soule, Nathan, Jr. 
Soule, John 
Soule, Elizabeth 
Soule, Nathan 
Soule, Joseph 
Shearman, Benj., farmer 
Shearman, Jabez 
Shearman, Justin 
Shearman, Mary W. 
Shearman, Job 
Shearman, Joshua 
Stephenson, Nathaniel 
Stephenson, Nathaniel. Jr. 
Shelden, Isaac 
Shelden, George 
Shelden, John 
Shelden, Joseph 
Shelden, Gideon 
Shelden, Benj. 
Sheldon, Thomas 
Sheldon, Potter 
Sheldon, Sarah 
Seelye, Nathaniel 
Seelye, Benj., Senr. 
Seelye, Ebenezer 
Seelye, Eleanor 
Seelye, Abel 
Seelye, Bradley 
Seelye, Elizabeth 
Spaulden, Nathan 
Spalden, Samuel 
Spaulding, Abijah 
Sill, Elijah 
Starke, William 
Shannon, George 
Slocum, Abraham 
Sill, Uriah 
Slocum, Elizabeth 
Sill, & Bangs 
Slocum, Benj. 
Stephenson, James 
Shove, Edward 
Sturdevant, Jonathan 



Sturdevant, Nathan 
Sturdevant, John 
Sturdevant Esther 
Smith, Noah 
Smith, Gaius 
Starke, James 
Starke, Christopher, Jr. 
Slone, Sam. 
Salsbury, Sarah 
Salmon, Hannah 
Storker, Seth 
Seamen, Stephen 
Stedwell, James 
Stedwell, Gilbert 
Salmon, John 
Sweet, Benedic 
Sabin, Jeremiah 

blacksmith 
Seaman, Moses 
Stone, Eathael 
Starke, Aaron 
Shed, Martha 
Sabin, Jeremiah, Senr. 
Shapparoon, Peter 
Stone, Ebenezer 
Thomas, John 
Thomas, Benj. 
Thomas, Abraham 
Thomas, Lewis 
Tripp, John 
Tripp, Experience 
Tallcott, Gaius 
Tripp, Lott 
Towner, Dan 
Towner, David 
Towner, Lois 
Towner, Sam, Senr. 
Towner, Mary 
Towner, Zacheus 
Thatcher, Partridge 
Taber, Job 
Taber, Hannah 
Taber, Thomas, Esq. 
Tuttle, Ebenezer 
Truman, Jonathan 
Tryon, James 
Tryon, Asahel 
Trowbridge, Seth 
Trowbridge. Billey 
Trowbridge, Caleb 



i66 



QUAKER HILl, 



Towner, Sam, Jr. 

Trim, Moses 

Thornton, John 

Tayler, Nathaniel 

Tyler, Bezaleel 

Tryon, Elisabeth 

Ter Boss, Daniel 

Toffey, John, hat maker 

Terry, Peter 

Vaughn, William 

Vaughn, Joseph, weaver 

Vaughn, Benjamin 

Veal, Michael 

Wing, Elisabeth 

Wing, Elihu 

Wing, Thomas 

Wing, Gershom 

Wing, Edward 

Wing, Elisha 

Wing, John 

Wing, William 

Wing, Abram Thomas 

Wing, Prince 

Wing, Russell 

Wing, Daniel 

Willcox, Louis, laborer 

Willcox, Thomas 

Willcox, Eunice 

Willcox, Joshua 

Willcox, Stephen 

Willcox, Rebecca 

Willcox, Rebecca 

Willcox, Jeffrey 

Willcox, Handy 

Willcox, Isaac 

West, Mary 

West, Elijah 

West, Delight 

West, Aaron 

West, Clement 

West, Sarah, Clement's wiff 

West, Benajah 

Welch, Paul 

Willcox, Mary 

Willcox, Antras 

Willcox, Sarah 

Willcox, Amos 

Wheeler, Enoch 

Wheeler, Joseph 

Wheeler, Samuel 



Wright, Samuel 

Wright, Kent 

Wright, Dennis 

Wright, Deborah 

Wright, Mary 

Wright, Uriah 

Wright, Abigail 

Wright, Samuel, Jr. 

Weed, Jacob 

Weed, Judah 

Wanzar, Moses 

Wanzar, Abraham 

Wanzar, Anthony 

Wanzar, Abigail 

Wanzar, Abraham, Jr. 

Wanzer, Chester 

Wanzer, Darkis 

Wanzer, Elizabeth 

Warner, Lemuel 

Warner, Oliver 

Warner, Orange 

Wood, Wilber 

Wickham, David 

Wickham, Phebe 

Wilkinson, Ebenezer 

Wickham, Gideon 
Whitely, Robert 
Wickham, John, weaver 
Woodward, Jonathan 
Whitely, Martha 
Weed, Jacob 
Woodard, Joseph 
Woodard, John 
Woodard, Elisabeth 
Woodard, Ephraim 
Williams, Daviss 
Wallace, Nathaniel 
Walsworth, William 
Wade, Jonathan 
Wallups, Jonathan 
Wheeler, Hezekiah 
Washburn, Joseph 
Woolman, Hannah 
Waldo, Jonathan 
Welch, John 
Wilkerson, Robert 
Williams, Markc 
Willmut, Lemuel 
Yates, Paul 



APPENDIX C. 

PACKAGE OF DEEDS OF OBLONG M. M. PROPERTIES. 

Discovered 1906 by William Ryder, of Brewster, N. Y. 

DEED. 

Zebulon Ferriss, of Oblong, to Benjamin Ferriss, David Akin, 
Ebenezer Peaslee, David Hoag, Joseph Irish, Nehemiah Merritt and 
Abraham Wing, all of Beekman's Precinct, Dutchess County, 5280 
square feet, being 132 feet frontage on north side of road, and 40 feet 
deep, east of Zebulon Ferriss' acre lot. Consideration four (4) pounds. 
Dated, 4. 16. 1764. "Recorded in the First Book of Friends' Records 
for Dutchess County in the Province of New York, the 24th of ye 
4th Mo. 1764, in Folio 89, 90." 

DEED. 

William Russell of Oblong, to same grantees, 40 square rods, being 
S rods frontage on north side of road, opposite Friends' old meeting 
house, and 8 rods deep. Consideration 8 pounds. (These two deeds 
seem to conflict as to direction and area.) 

Recorded 4.24.1764 in same volume, page 87 and 88. 

WARRANTY DEED. 

Joseph Ferriss and Nathan Gaylor, both of Town of New Milford, 
Litchfield Co., Conn., to Dobson Wheeler, and Gains Talcott of same 
town, Benjamin Ferriss, David Akins, Henry Chase, Timothy Dakins, 
George Soule, Abraham Wing, Reed Ferriss and Zebulon Ferriss, of 
York Government, land in New Milford "in the Common Field, by 
the side of the Great River at the south end of the Indian Field lots, 
a top of the hill East of the road, as goes to Danbury. "The Meeting 
House of the People called Quakers' Stands, on the said land. We 
had it of Benjamin Ferriss and David Noble the quantity to be seen 
on the records and it all the Land we .jire possessed of on the East 
Side of that Road bounded North and West on the road that goes to 
Danbury, East on the River." Dated July 6th, 1762. 

CONSIDERATION RECEIVED. 

Acknowledged before John Hitchcock, J. P. Recorded July 7, 1762, 
in New Milford, 9th Book of Records, page 667. 

DEED. 

Nicholas Wanzer of New Fairfield, Fairfield Co., Conn., to "the 
society of people called Quakers," one acre in New Milford, with 
Meeting House, etc. thereon. Consideration 2 pounds, 10 shillings. 
Dated 11. 21. 1788. Recorded in New Milford, i6th Book of Records, 
page 484. This does not seem to be the property described in above 



l68 QUAKER HILL 

deed of Joseph Ferriss, this being on the "west side of the Grate Rode 
that goes north and south through the plain." 

Daniel Haviland of Southeast precinct, Dutchess County, to Joseph 
Irish, Edward Shove, Reed Ferriss and Wing Kelley, of Pawling's 
precinct and Elnathan Sweet and Joseph Lancaster, of Beekman's pre- 
cinct and Benjamin Ferriss of New Milford, Conn., for the people 
called "Quakers," one acre and 70 rods, in South East precinct. Con- 
sideration, love of the Society. Dated 8. 12. 1782. Not recorded. 

DEED. 

Roger Haviland, of New Fairfield, Conn., to same grantees, one 
acre and 30 rods in South East precinct. Consideration, love of the 
Society. Dated 8. 12. 1782. Not recorded. This would seem to join 
the property given by Daniel Haviland. 

DEED. 
John Hoag, of Pawling's precinct, to Nathan Soule, Edward Shove 
and Thomas Haight, of Pawling's, 42 rods, on East Side of the high- 
way in north end of Lot 38 of the Oblong. Consideration, love of 
the Society. Dated, 2. 12. 1784. Recorded in Oblong M. M. minutes 
for 2nd month, 1784. 

DEED. 

Isaiah Hoag, of Pawling's precinct to Nathan Soule, Edward Shove, 
Abner Hoag, Thomas Haight, Azariah Howland and Isaac Osborn, 
of Pawling's precinct, i}/2 acres in Pawling's precinct, for pasturing 
Friends' horses, etc. Consideration 10 pounds. Dated 7.30.1786. Not 
recorded. (Branch Meeting House.) 

DEED. 

Daniel Wing, of Pawling's precinct, to same grantees as above, 45 
rods, for building a meeting house, etc. Consideration 5 pounds. Dated 
9. 18. 1786. Not recorded. (Branch Meeting House.) 

DEED. 

Abner Hoag of Town of Dover, Dutchess Co., to M. M. of Ob- 
long, 27 rods, adjoining the meeting house lot, "now called Branch 
Meeting." Consideration $7.50. Dated 5.21.1811. Not recorded. 

List of Deeds belonging to Oblong M. M. 5th Mo., 1788. 



VITA. 

The author of this dissertation was born May i, 1867. He 
received from Oberlin College the degree of A.B. in 1890, and 
that of A.M. in 1894. He graduated from Union Theological 
Seminary in 1894, and has since served as an active pastor at 
Quaker Hill and in Brooklyn, New York. While in the 
Seminary and also during the years 1903- 1905 he was a 
graduate student in Columbia University, having especial 
interest in the lectures of Professor Franklin H. Giddings ; 
to whom as to his associates on the Faculty of Political Science, 
he owes a debt of gratitude for a conception of the common 
life of men on the earth. 



LBJe'lO 



QUAKER HILL 



A SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY 



BY 



WARREN H. WILSON, A.M. 



SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE 

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF 

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 



FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



New York 
1907 



o 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



014 109 564 A 



